In a message dated 1/15/03 11:12:08 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
<< "Two questions:
1) How was Medieval anarchic Icerland horrific?
2) It is possible to have a voluntary, non-state "we", so there must be
some other necessary distinction."
Joe writes:
As to 1) all I can say is that Medieval Iceland doesn't exist
anymore, nor do I remember any classes explaining the great contributions
Medieval Iceland made to world culture, whereas I DO seem to remember a
number of advances made by mixed economy nations, such as Britain, the
United States, Germany, and France. This brings to mind the problem I see
with many Libertarians and Libertarian/Anarchists. The examples they choose
of "good" states/societies generally demonstrates the fallacy of the
arguments their proponents advance. Rothbard admires Medieval Ireland and
laments its inability to deal the bad, centralized, militaristic English.
Well, my response is that societies that can not deal with their neighbors
and prosper, probably were not very good societies. Medieval Icaland may
have been a nice place, what did it accomplish?
As to 2) I thought it fairly obvious that we were discussing the
"State" not state and society... If I must I say the "state" is that entity
that has the legitimate authority for the use of proactive violence. In a
number of societies, generally those considered "Western" we have that
distinction between Civil/voluntary society and the "state." I would give
my definition for the essential characteristic of the state. I simply argue
that an all encompassing "state" or a non-existent "state" provide bad
outcomes. In fact, I would argue that the absence of the state leads, more
often than not, to the creation of the all encompassing state. As the
anarchy of no state leads to the Chaos of no state, examples, Beirut 1975
until 1990 (?) Somalia 1992 to present.
When no state exists we have the Hobbesian world of the war by all
against all. To escape that disaster, what generally emerges is an
authoritarian state, to quell the chaos. It "makes the trains run on time"
and that's what people will accept rather than the "freedom" of anarchy.
So, I come back to the point, we need to debate at the margins about
the proper mix of "me" and "us" in society and the state's role in this
intermediation. Personally, I accept that Libertarian domestic polices are
often the best. But only from a Utilitarian view point. They work and work
well for most people, however, as a basis for society, they would be abject
failures. Their needs to be an "us" that can restrain the various "me's"
that make up a society. >>
Before I settled on modern economic history, I'd planned to become a Medieval
Scandinavian specialist, and even studied the Old Norse language (with
Professor Michael Bell, a great fellow, at University of Colorado, Boulder)
for a semester (it took more time than my four history course combined). For
what it's worth, Iceland did not fall prey to "militaristic England" but rath
er to the cunning, conniving King of Norway, who started funding all sides in
law suits in the Althing until he'd escalated the lawsuits into open warefare
and then could send in troops and take over.
That does't change Joe's essential point that Medieval Iceland's anarchic
society didn't in the long run survive assault by a more statist society. I
wouldn't point out, however, that even taking the most conservative estimate
of Iceland's longevity as an anarchic society and comparing it to the most
liberal estimate of America's survival as a free society so far, Iceland wins
by more than a century. The Norse began to settle Iceland between 860 and
870, adopting a formal legal code for Iceland, creating the Althing (which
met for two weeks a year to hear cases from) the four quarter courts, and the
local Things. With the influence of the King of Norway, civil war errupted
in 1262, ending in 1264 with Norway's conquest. Even if we date the period
of an anarchic society only from 930 and end it in 1262, we get 332 years.
In the American case, even if we date freedom from 1776 and, ignoring the
rampant statism of the 20th century, claim that it still exists, we get only
227 years. So even by estimates most biased toward the US, we're more than a
century behind the Icelandic example. (One might well argue for inclusion of
the first 70 years in Iceland's tally, bringing it up to 400 years. One
might also argue for the omission of more recent years of American history,
perhaps since 1933, or 1917, or, some might argue, 1861 ;), as well as the
years of the War of Independence reducing the US period of freedom to 220,
150, 134 or even 52.) Even by the estimate most biased in favor of the US,
Iceland outperformed the US in longevity by nearly 50%.
I might also add that for most of the long history of Icelandic anarchy, most
of Icelanders lived peaceably with their neighbors; only a relatively few
raised their hand against the others, and generally their either recompensed
their victims or, like Eirkr inn Rauthr (the infamous Erik the Red, founder
of the Greenland colony and fatherh of Leif the Lucky, aka Leif Ericson),
fled Iceland after the Althing declared them utlaw (outlaw), making it open
season on their lives and property.
Nor did the anarchy of Iceland lead to the creation of an all-encompasing
state; rather, the all-encompasing state (if one wants to call Medieval
Norway that, for the sake of argument, even though the king's ability to
control the daily lives of his subjects paled by comparision with that of the
modern welfare-regulatory bureaucracy) subverted the anarchic society so it
could take over. No private individual could have had the vast resources
that the King of Norway threw away in order to subvert the anarchic society
of Iceland. Rather than serving as an argument against anarchic societies,
it serves as an argument against all-encompassing states--or indeed
less-encompassing centralized states as well.
The argument that one hasn't heard of the great accomplishments of Iceland
begs a two-fold reply. Most Americans learn most of their history either
from liberal-statist journalists, most of whom had never heard of Iceland
before the Reagan-Gorbechev arms-control summit there, or from professional
historians (in college courses, textbooks and scholarly histories) the
overwhelming majority of whom have been, and continue to be leftwing statists
of some sort or not. Professional historians in America began with the
Progressives (mostly moderate statists who wanted to produce a "usable
history," ie a history that lent support to statism), continued with the
short-lived Consensus historians (mostly liberal-statists of the Democratic
Party sort) and through New Left historians (virulent statists who
passionately hate liberal statism, which they see as "a fascist band-aid over
the real evils of capitalism). It's no wonder that few of these historians
would have much if anything positive to say about Medieval Iceland.
More fundamentally, however, we might look at the value lying behind the
assertion that Medieval Iceland's anarchic society wasn't worthy of emulation
because it didn't contribute "accomplish" anything. The role of a civil
society is to let people accomplish their individual goals without trampling
one another's liberty, not to allow monarchs or parliaments to create great
empires or scientists to pursue their pet research projects by placing a gun
at the head of other individuals. This frightening utilitarian notion that
societies are valuable only for their collectivist benefits instead of for
their individual benefits, rather than any failing in anarchic spontaneous
order, motivates those people who don't mind the government shooting some
people so long as the trains run on time. The greatness of Medieval Iceland
comes not from any empires or taxpayer funded scientific expeditions, but
rather from the fact that it allowed the vast majority of its citizens to
live in liberty with a minimum of fuss--for three or four centuries. Even
ignoring a century or more of statism (and the death and distruction of the
American Civil War), we still have a century or two to go before we could
make such a claim about America.
David Levenstam
P.S. Did I use "statist" enough? <G>
