Unbundling the Warlord

For 1. I'm not sure if you actually disagree with Arnold, as in you believe that

Society is not better off if somebody - anybody - stops the "war of all against all"

Or merely that even if someone/something does stop the war of all against all, we may not be out of the woods quite yet. That is, the someone or something may be the source of other troubles (the who guards the guardians issue). The former position doesn't seem plausible. On the other hand, I doubt that Arnold needs disagree with the latter, nor does 1. entail the denial of the latter.

In other words, some form of Leviathan may be a necessary condition of commodious living; but the argument does not yet specify what form (remember that for Hobbes, monarchy, oligarchy and democracy can all be equally serve). I don't see Arnold's argument as entailing a complete agreement with Hobbes' claim that unlimited and unlimitable sovereign is the only consistent solution to the war of all against all.

For 2, my own suspicion is that Arnold's case is better served not by a contrast between rule by one and rule by committee, but by a contrast between 'rule' by procedures (or rule of law) and rule by people--whether one, few or many.

For reasons that remain poorly understood, the status quo in the Western democracies currently provides the highest standard of living in human history, and any radical change has a serious risk of ending in disaster.

Surely the rule of law, on which I agree with Arnold, plays an important part.

Anyway, I'm glad to read this. With all this AC lunacy, I was beginning to think you were totally insane. I still wonder about many of the commenters. Who would rather live in a warlord society than in one of these democracies? Let them go to Afghanistan or Colombia, or Somalia.

why should I care if the government transfers my assets to the leadership, or someone else who isn't me?

Doesn't that depend on the ex ante agreements that are in place? For example, I don't object if the insurance company "transfers my assets" to someone whose house has burned, since I have agreed to make assets available for this purpose, on the condition that others' assets are transferred to me if my house burns. Yes, I know that government transfers are not unanimously agreed to.

Poorly understood? Yeah, I suppose so. My stab at it would be that, recent rise of the American Taliban/Religious Right aside, The US and Western Europe have(since the end of the middle ages anyhow) relatively minimized the influence of religious nuts, and have found somewhat of a healthy balance between a free market system and one with too much gov't interference. I'll throw in a plug for a humanist view, and one of respect for individual freedoms. It's not perfect, but it works. It's provided the greatest good for the greatest number.

The anarcho-capitalists I've talked to at GMU have some nice ideas, and maybe if we could blow the planet up and rebuild it from scratch exactly as they envision it it could work. But, yes, there is that one sticking point that right now we have more "stuff" than anyone's ever had before, and people like stuff, and chances of success or failure aside it's hard to *persuade* people to try a radically different system. The only people who really don't have much of a stake in the system-the very poor-seem like they'd be more disposed to leftist ideas if they're inclined towards something ultra radical.

Politics is the art of the possible.

I certainly agree with Bryan's italicized point. To try to smoke out the "reasons that remain poorly understood" is part of my purpose in reading what Bryan and Arnold write.

For reasons that remain poorly understood

I think that if one pays attention to the New Institutional School, the reasons become more clear. In short, economic growth requires investment, but the insecurity of property rights encourages investors to hide their money under a mattress and/or bribe powerful people to protect it. The rule of law and the rationalization of government and society by the Protestant revolution provided unparalleled security for property. As a result, investment and innovation exploded. By the way, the Protestant Dutch Replublic gave the world the first state to allow religious freedom. It also gave us the first true form of capitalism, which offered far greater individual freedom than the US does today.

Roger M. -- Can you recommend any good written work dealing with the issues in your post? Thanks.

John,
Philip Gorski's "The Disciplinary Revolution" updates Max Weber's thesis on the impact of Protestantism on government after the Protestant Reformation, with implications about economics. Jonathan Israel has one of the best histories of the Dutch Republic. Jan De Vries's "The First Modern Economy" has the best economic history of the Dutch Republic, but he doesn't place much emphasis on institutions. For the impact of institutions on economic performance, see the Journal of Institutional Economics. Douglass North is the grandfather of the New Institutional school and has written a lot about property rights, development, and the Dutch Republic. I have a great paper by Gorski that ties all of this together, but it's at home. I'll try to remember to post the URL for it tomorrow.

Thanks very much.

Poorly understood? Yeah, I suppose so. My stab at it would be that, recent rise of the American Taliban/Religious Right aside, The US and Western Europe have(since the end of the middle ages anyhow) relatively minimized the influence of religious nuts, and have found somewhat of a healthy balance between a free market system and one with too much gov't interference. I'll throw in a plug for a humanist view, and one of respect for individual freedoms. It's not perfect, but it works. It's provided the greatest good for the greatest number.

Isn't it ironic, then, that the societies that were fervently religious in the beginning are also the ones that are thriving democracies, whereas the ones that were fervently atheistic or humanistic are the ones that are struggling to cope with democracy? The point is that one size-fits-all arguments like the one above that simplistic and don't consider a variety of factors: surely we can all say that the Middle East is something we don't want to happen anytime soon in our country, but at the same time we run the danger of going completely in the opposite direction where we suppress people's religious freedoms and create environments that become hostile to one another.

Here are two good articles on the internet about institutions and development:

The Protestant Reformation and
Economic Hegemony: Religion and the
Rise of Holland and England
Phil Gorski
University of Wisconsin

http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=uclasoc

Paradox of the West by North
http://econwpa.wustl.edu:8089/eps/eh/papers/9309/9309005.pdf

The libertarian and anarchist have the burden of proof, to demonstrate why a cession of sovereignty is valuable and not traitorous. It is also for them to prove that a lasting statelessness can exist, and be more than just freedom for aggression.

Aristoteles had a theory: Goverment changes in cycles. Democracy, aristocracy, dictatorship, etc.

For reasons that remain poorly understood, the status quo in the Western democracies currently provides the highest standard of living in human history, and any radical change has a serious risk of ending in disaster.
That's a tough one.

Actually there's a similarly short response to this objection as well, which is that monarchies in the 17th and 18th centuries said the same things about monarchy vs. democracy. Arguing from ignorance proves nothing, which is exactly what it starts with: nothing.