Many of you already know that two of NOL‘s Senior Editors are associated with Econ Journal Watch, thus making its publication a family affair. Fred is on the editorial board and Warren is its math reader. Here are some of the highlights I found worth noting in the latest issue:
Eli Heckscher’s Ideological Migration Toward Market Liberalism: Benny Carlson explores the intellectual evolution of a great Swedish economist.
Symposium:
Classical Liberalism in Econ, by Country: Authors from around the world tell us about their country’s culture of political economy, in particular the vitality of liberalism in the original political sense, historically and currently, with special attention to professional economics as practiced in academia, think tanks, and intellectual networks.New contributions:
Young Back Choi and Yong Yoon: Liberalism in Korea
Pavel Kuchař: Liberalism in Mexican Economic Thought, Past and Present
(All of the papers from this symposium, which has carried across multiple issues of EJW, are collected at this page.)
You can download the whole issue here (pdf).
Dr Khawaja, an Editor-at-Large for Reason Papers, reports (2/2/16) on the latest issue over at Policy of Truth:
The latest issue of Reason Papers, vol. 37, number 2 is now out; officially, it’s the Fall 2015 issue, but we only just managed to put it up on the website last night. This link will take you to a monster-size PDF to the whole issue (almost 250 pages). This link will take you to the journal’s Archive page, where you can access individual articles for this or any past issue (you have to scroll down a bit). Finally, this link will take you to three (time sensitive) Calls for Papers issued by the journal’s editors: one on “the philosophy of play” (March 1, 2016); one a fifteen-year retrospective on 9/11 (July 1, 2016); and one an Authors-Meet-Critics symposium on Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen’s forthcoming book The Perfectionist Turn: From Meta-Norms to Meta-Ethics (February 1, 2017).
My own small contribution to Reason Papers can be found here (pdf).
There have been a number of excellent discussions in the ‘comments’ threads these days. Dr Khawaja adds more depth to the discussion on Iran and foreign policy. Me and Chhay Lin are in the midst of a debate on democracy and libertarianism. Michelangelo’s post on splitting up California generated a good discussion. You can see what’s hot in the threads by looking to your right, of course. I wanted to highlight this ‘comment’ by Rick in the threads of Edwin’s recent post on liberalism and sovereignty:
“[S]overeignty is a constitutional idea of the rights and duties of the governments and citizens or subjects of particular states.”
To me, a constitution is like a contract. It’s close to set in stone and it lays out these rights and duties. But the idea of sovereignty Jackson is pointing toward in that quote would be better understood as laying out a sort of meta-prize; it’s a delineation of the commons that potential groups within that area may compete over or cooperate in. To be fair, a constitution is a similar sort of commons (especially when that constitution includes the right to collect tax and lead armies). The question of how to govern the commons is *the* question on the domestic side.
On the international end of things, anarcho-capitalism calls for muddying the borders of these commons. This has obvious costs and benefits: it makes the emergence of a productive polycentric order easier, but it also opens access to what would have been relatively closed commons. I think the missing piece in the world governance question, whether from a classical liberal, minarchist, or anarchist perspective is the question of how a polycentric order would emerge and function (e.g. standards associations, norms of arbitration/dispute resolution, etc.).
More discussion is needed on this point…
Sean McFate, a political scientist at National Defense University in Washington, DC, has a fascinating article in Aeon about the reemergence of mercenary and quasi-mercenary security firms throughout the world. The whole article is fulfilling throughout, especially if you’re a well-read anarchist or a history buff, but I wanted to highlight this tangent:
With the fall of the South African apartheid regime, unemployed soldiers from special forces units such as the 32nd Battalion and the Koevoet (‘crowbar’ in Afrikaans) special police formed the first modern private military company, appropriately named Executive Outcomes. Unlike WatchGuard, Executive Outcomes was not a military enterpriser but a true mercenary firm, waging war for the highest bidder. It operated in Angola, Mozambique, Uganda and Kenya. It offered to help stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, but Kofi Annan – then head of UN peacekeeping – refused, claiming ‘the world may not be ready to privatise peace’. Annan’s was an expensive ideology, given the fact that 800,000 people died. By 1998, the company closed its doors, but the mercenary market for force surged.
Two aspects are important here, one said and one unsaid. First, the unsaid. If this mercenary outfit was “waging war for the highest bidder,” why did it offer to go in to Rwanda to stop the bloodshed? I think scholars assume the worst when it comes to stateless actors and warfare. Why has Anheuser-Busch begun shipping free cans of water into Flint, MI? Why does Wal-Mart donate billions of dollars to charity? When it comes to reputation, costs may sometimes not make sense to outside observers who don’t have a sufficient understanding of benefits. Why on earth would a corporation built solely to wage war for the highest bidder be interested in offering its services to a country that would not be able to afford its services? To ask the question is to answer it, of course, but understanding incentives using a costs-benefits framework requires more effort than you might suspect.
There is simply no logical coherence to the idea that, in a world where stateless mercenary firms are the prominent form of security, violence and lawlessness will reign supreme; nor is there any evidence whatsoever to suggest that “[m]ore mercenaries means more war, as they are incentivised to start and expand wars for profit, and turn to criminality between contracts.” Indeed, as McFate notes in his excellent article, the market for security is already becoming freer and while he ends his piece on a depressing note, lamenting this indisputable fact of the present-day world, I couldn’t help but remember the now-famous graph on battle death trends produced by political scientist Jay Ulfelder (using data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program [UCDP]), which illustrates nicely the overall decline in deaths due to warfare violence around the world:
The always excellent Max Roser and his Our World in Data project has another graph worth highlighting, with this one using data from Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature… and the UCDP:
Now, two graphs showing that deaths from warfare have been in decline for half a century does not necessarily mean that a freer market in security services has led directly to this overwhelmingly good news. I am confident in claiming, though, that the freeing up of security services markets, combined with the steady presence of a few, still-powerful nationalized armies has led to a reduction in war-related deaths (and violent conflict in general). Both graphs illustrate well what happens when there are too many nationalized armies vying for power and prestige. (It is worth noting here that the main goal of diplomats and policymakers everywhere, no matter their ideological orientation or citizenship status, is still to avoid another world war.)
Second, the said. Annan’s refusal to decriminalize mercenary activities led directly to the 800,000 Rwandan deaths. How is this moral failing any better than when a mercenary firm breaks its contract and ends up killing a few dozen more people than it was supposed to? Again, the graphs are useful here: When conflict is nationalized, everybody suffers; when it is privatized, atrocities happen but not on the same scale we have seen with nationalized conflicts. It’s not even close. Annan’s short-sightedness reminds me of economist Scott Sumner’s 2012 summary of Hillary Clinton’s view of the War on Drugs:
[…] in response to a final question on drugs (from a Latin American reporter), she said drug legalization would do no good because drug dealers are really bad people, and they would simply do other crimes. No discussion of how America’s murder rate fell in half after alcohol was legalized in 1933.
Like drug use, the privatization of security services causes many people, well-educated or otherwise, to bristle at the notion without quite thinking through its logical implications. While ugly, mercenary firms are far more efficient and effective at quelling “bush wars” than are nationalized armies and, in turn, mercenary outfits are far less capable of sowing the type of destruction that nationalized armies routinely carry out.
I don’t think that a world with a few nationalized armies and an abundance of mercenary firms is necessarily the best option going forward, though. It is, however, a better option than most scholars and analysts give it credit for. In fact, it’s the best option at the moment, and while the status quo may sometimes be ugly, remember the graphs. Privatization of security services has contributed, at least in part, to a more peaceful and less violent world.
In order to move forward from this status quo it is best not lament the way things are going, but to acknowledge that things are the way they are for a reason, and then look for avenues to alter the status quo without falling back on a blanket policy like nationalizing security services again. The horrors of the World Wars should still be fresh in our minds, and the horrors of those wars were enabled and encouraged by nationalized security forces.
The best way to move forward is by looking at where these “bush wars” are taking place and begin thinking about ways to incorporate these regions into the global order (such as it is). This policy represents a departure from traditional post-war thinking about international relations, but it doesn’t make it radical or unfeasible. Indeed, there is a long tradition of republican thinking in Western thought pertaining to international relations. The West needs to start recognizing the legitimacy of secessionist sentiments in the post-colonial world, even if it means friction with Russia and China.
Washington and Brussels will have to endure charges of hypocrisy when it comes to ignoring the lobbying efforts of places like Tibet and Dagestan, but Biafra should have become a member state of the United Nations long ago. Baluchistan should have access independent of Pakistan and Iran to the IMF and World Bank. Two or three soccer teams from the region known as Kurdistan could easily be present in all major FIFA tournaments. Examples abound throughout the world. The West should also be open to recognizing arguments made by Russia and China for the independence of regions. There is no good reason why Western diplomats should ignore Moscow’s recognition of places like South Ossetia and Donetsk; doing so only hardens Russia’s stance on recognizing secession in parts of the world where its influence is limited or non-existent and forces the West into bed with unsavory post-socialist regimes.
The West needs to start being more inclusive when it comes to its own federal and republican institutions, too. Morocco, for example, should have had its 1987 application to join the European Union taken seriously (same goes for Turkey). The US federation needs to be actively courting polities like Puerto Rico, Coahuila, Alberta, and Micronesia to join the union. Both the EU and US are contracts designed to dampen violent conflict by fostering diplomatic, economic, and cultural intercourse between provincial polities. The reasoning behind exclusionary policies simply doesn’t answer why these republican, supranational organizations should not be actively recruiting neighboring or geopolitically useful administrative units into their representative systems.
Without this change in mindset the status quo will continue, which again if we remember the graphs is not all that bad, but something worse may happen: There could be a reversion to the blanket nationalization of security services that we saw during World Wars I and II.
That’s the main question being asked by Federico Boffa, Amedeo Piolatto, and Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, all economists. I cruised through the whole paper (pdf) and have some superficial thoughts. One snippet:
Western California is more liberal, even among Republican voters and politicians; Eastern California considerably more conservative […] At a first glance, such a political divide might suggest that a break up of coastal and inland California would be optimal on preference-matching grounds […]
[H]owever [this is a] superficial assessment. [Eastern California] contain[s] a large Hispanic population that overwhelmingly prefers the Democratic party. This group is much less educated, less politically knowledgeable, and less likely to vote than Republican supporters in the region, who are on average older, whiter, and wealthier. At the same time, the left-wing Hispanic working class in the Valley shares the political leanings of highly educated liberals on the coast. This ideological alignment goes beyond mere partisanship and includes shared preferences over policies.
As a consequence, our model suggests that the political integration of California is welfare maximizing. For relatively uneducated inland minorities to have a government corresponding to their preferences, it is essential that they share a state with ideologically aligned liberal elites in the Bay area. Right-wing Californians, instead, are sufficiently educated and influential to have a voice in state-wide politics, despite being in the minority: California had a Republican governor for twenty-one of the past thirty years.
[This lesson] applies more broadly. Disadvantaged ethnic minorities— which are less educated and often politically underrepresented— should belong whenever possible to the same polity as better educated and higher-status voters having similar political preferences. Only then are politicians effectively held accountable to both groups. (29-30)
California is “welfare maximizing”? Somebody help me out here. Isn’t it also possible that poor Hispanics and rich liberals form a voting bloc in California as it is because of how the GOP is patched together? If California split into an East/West, current coalitions would be shattered and it doesn’t follow that rich liberals and poor Hispanics would share the same voting preferences in the new arrangement. It doesn’t follow that rich conservatives and poor Hispanics in a hypothetical East would be at odds, either.
The biggest weakness in the paper, if you can call it that, is that the authors are focused on the fiscal aspects of federalism rather than the diplomatic, cultural, and political aspects. Federalism binds people together and forces them to at least try to come to an agreement about some issues. That’s a big deal, though it’s obviously not sexy.
The paper is focused on the EU and the US. There are lots of interesting insights into the European Union but the US angle is kinda boring (I’m sure is vice-versa for readers living and working in Europe). (h/t Mark Koyama)
One has captured the rent associated with being a state in the post-World War II world order. This means that one of these polities gets to build embassies in other states. It gets to participate in congresses. It gets to fly its flag at the United Nations and has access to the World Bank, military hardware markets (“for defense”), and FIFA tournaments.
Rent capture isn’t all good, of course. There are still costs. When Saudi Arabia beheads people, for example, it gets condemned internationally. Its reputation suffers. It has to repair relationships and launch rigorous public relations campaigns. Saudi Arabia has to do these things because if it looks intransigent to enough of its fellow states, there might be official repercussions for its actions. Saudi Arabia can’t just go around killing and looting and raping at will. It has to formalize its killing, looting, and raping through the international order by coming up with a national interest. (A national interest is also important for shoring up domestic support for such activities.)
But incorporating Islamic State into the international order is unfathomable. It’s an immoral action rewarding an immoral pseudo-polity. Besides, the sovereignty of the states of Iraq and Syria would be violated and their borders destroyed. It’s better to just keep bombing the region Islamic State claims to govern and arming the factions that claim to be its enemies. That’s been our policy towards the post-colonial world since 1945 and, while imperfect, it’s been working out well so far…
Longtime reader (and excellent blogger in his own right) Tam has an interesting response to Chhay Lin’s thoughts on the Paris terrorist attacks:
It is an interesting read indeed but there are two or even more sides to every story. What we are also noting is that many of these groups that hate Western interventionist policies also hate their own people for being different in one way or the other. However, I agree that the misplaced perception of democracy as the superior form of governance overlooks the essential internal historical and socio-political factors behind the politics of the different countries that have become victims of Western ‘sanctification’ processes fronted by bombs after daring to opt not to embrace democracy. Libya and Iraq were stable before Western intervention.
Tam’s point strikes at the heart of the difference between military interventionists and non-interventionists, I think. Libya and Iraq were indeed stable, but not everybody was free. In Iraq, Shias, Kurds, liberals, and religious Sunnis were all brutally suppressed, and this oppression stood in stark contrast to the freedoms that secularists, women, union members, some socialists, and the politically apathetic enjoyed. The sociopolitical dynamics in Libya were the same, though with different local actors.
This reality is something that both sides of the interventionist debate recognize, though the interventionist side seems to place much more faith in government when it comes to “doing something.” Jacques and Edwin, for example, have both argued that bombing ambiguous factions in Iraq, Syria, and Libya would contribute to the freedoms of the oppressed factions in those countries. Looking back on the debate makes it clear that they weren’t wrong, but look at what those freedoms have produced. Those freedoms have come at the expense of the freedoms of the factions that the dictators were protecting.
What this situation shows me is that the states of the post-colonial world are unviable. Stability comes at too steep a price (dictatorship), and democracy’s unpredictability only leads to predictably violent results in the post-colonial world.
This impasse, which I cannot be the only one in the world who recognizes, has led me to take a hard glance at two specific peace processes in the Western world: The diplomatic efforts of Europeans after the Napoleonic Wars (“Concert of Europe”) and the founding of the American republic, which is, in my mind, the most successful endeavor in the history of international relations. Neither of these efforts led to the complete abolition of war, but both have helped to maintain a relatively peaceful co-existence between large numbers of factions for long periods of time.
The Concert of Europe bought time for factions in the region to solidify their legitimacy at home, culminating in both the creation of Germany and Italy in the late nineteenth century and the infamous overseas imperial domains of France, the UK, and the Netherlands (among a few others). While this peace process brought about prosperity for Western Europe, it was not inclusive and it still adhered to the Westphalian notion of state sovereignty. What state sovereignty means is that each state, in the context of international affairs, has a right to do whatever it pleases within the confines of its own borders (such as massacre hundreds of thousands of people in the name of stability). The Concert of Europe was also the precursor to the post-1945 peace process that created the state system that we all live with today, though I would argue that there are some elements that could be republican, such as the IMF and World Bank, provided some changes in mindset.
Aside from the problems produced by the notion of state sovereignty, the states of the post-colonial world today suffer from an issue of legitimacy, both from domestic populations and from foreign ones. Domestically, all of the factions that stability-inducing dictatorships oppress do not buy in to the argument that the states purporting to govern them are legitimate. In foreign affairs, many factions do not believe that these post-colonial states are legitimate either. Hence the calls for bombing campaigns, proxy wars, or outright invasions and occupations of states like Iraq and Libya by states like the US or France (even if these invasions come at the expense of domestic and international rule of law).
This situation, where post-colonial states claim to have sovereignty within an international state system but where domestic and international factions ignore such claims, is where we’re at today. It’s the status quo, and while it worked relatively well in a small part of the world for about hundred years or so, it’s obviously failing today.
Enter the founding of the American republic. Unlike the Concert of Europe, self-determination à la breaking away from the UK was a guiding principle of the federal system, rather than state sovereignty. Like the Concert of Europe, the statesmen who crafted the American republic were concerned about invasion, hegemony, and all of the other bad stuff that happens in the international arena. So they set up an inclusive, republican system of states rather than attempt to balance power off on each other, like they did in Europe. The republican, or federal, system tied each state up into the affairs of the other states, whereas the balance of power system contributed to the formation of rival blocs within the system. This is why Europe switched from trying to maintain yet another balancing act to building an actual confederation (though one that is far too complex than it has to be) after World War II.
From a strictly war and peace view, the republican state system has led to one war so far (dating from 1789). From the end of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815, to today, the balance of power state system has led to numerous wars.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy was based on self-determination, and his foreign policy was a disaster. This is true, though I would argue that Wilson was simply confused about what self-determination actually implied. For Wilson, recognizing the self-determination of various groups within empires would lead to state sovereignty for these groups, and that this state sovereignty would then be protected by the institutions trying to maintain a balance of power. Wilson never entertained the notion of republicanism when it came to recognizing the self-determination of peoples living in empires, he simply thought empires were undemocratic. Thus, he was actually a proponent of state sovereignty rather than self-determination.
What I am not arguing for here is a Concert of Europe-type effort for Middle Eastern actors. I think it would be a disaster, largely because regional efforts at peace-building (rather than, say, trade agreements) are useless in today’s globalized world. The Middle East needs the West, and vice-versa. Peace will only be achieved if self-determination is embraced (by not only large swathes of Mideast factions, but Western ones as well) and the new polities can be incorporated into existing republican-esque institutions. This way, more factions have a voice, and bad actors can be more easily isolated. I am not necessarily arguing that the US or EU should welcome burgeoning Mideast states into their federations, but policymakers and statesmen from these countries should at least start thinking about how to encourage and embrace the notion of a Middle East that looks a lot like our own republican world and less like the one we gave them following the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.
Stability is overrated, especially if the notion of creative destruction is taken into account.
I sympathize with your pro-federation views, but it is admittedly a difficult position to argue from a purist libertarian view. I would support offering statehood to Japan and South Korea, as I mentioned earlier this week.* I would not however offer the same deal to Ukraine or the Baltic states. If pressed why I would be okay with federation with one group of countries but not another is because I consider the Ukraine/Baltic region to have little value to American interests. I can see Japan/South Korea federation helping economic growth and military might to the US and therefore in our interests. Note my use of plural pronouns.
From a purely libertarian basis what regions would you offer federation with? Or, if you’d offer federation to all of them, which regions would you offer federation with first? Taiwan might entertain an offer to join the federation tomorrow, but I suspect the PRC or Russia wouldn’t.
*I imagine they’d join as multiple states in practice. I wouldn’t offer Japan 114 seats in the senate, but I would entertain giving them 10 senators.
Why only ten? Michelangelo’s quibble about the number senators can illustrate why federation is more libertarian than isolationism (I’ll get to his question in just a minute).
The Japanese would never accept any sort of union where they give up some sovereignty for other benefits and only have ten representatives in the senate. That wouldn’t be a bargain for the Japanese; it’d be highway robbery. The key conceptual point to keep in mind in this scenario is that there are two sides bargaining and cooperating with each other in order to arrive at a mutually beneficial deal. Japan and the US cease to exist as sovereign political units but become more secure militarily, economically, and politically through a federation with each other.
Contrast this view with what, say, isolationists such as Doug Bandow or Daniel McAdams argue; they want much less cooperation and, by implication, much less choice. Cooperation would be limited to negotiating trade details, arming factions, and coordinating responses to natural disasters. This is radically different from the status quo, but not in a beneficial way. Think of all the things isolationism and the status quo exclude from their policies. People in Japan and the US are overwhelmingly in favor of a continued US presence in Japan. The reasons for this are clear, but as it stands the Japanese are taking the US for a ride. Isolationist arguments are arguably worse, as they’d remove US troops (angering vast swathes of both societies in the process), which would put Japan in a position to fend for itself. Isolationism is “doing something,” and it’s doing something uncooperative.
I agree wholeheartedly with mainstream libertarians about the unfair nature of the status quo. I just think their proposals are equally unfair (if not worse). A libertarian position should emphasize cooperation, choice, and trade-offs above all else. The current stable of libertarian foreign policy experts don’t do this, despite their pertinent critiques of the status quo.
Now, before I get to Michelangelo’s question of who (I promise it’s coming), I want to spend a little time on his proposal for 10 senators, and tie it into the concept of “national interest,” which is a fuzzy concept and hence popular to wield in public discourse.
What is the national interest (or US interest)?
Think it through and write down your answer on a piece of scratch paper you have lying around.
Go ahead. I’ll wait patiently.
Is your answer really the national interest, though? Why is your definition of the national interest true and Walter Russell Mead’s not? Here is how I defined the concept of a national interest back in 2014:
…the national interest is an excuse [scholars and activists use] for a policy or set of policies that [they believe] should be taken in order to strengthen a state and its citizens (but not necessarily strengthen a state relative to other states…)
Now go back and look at what you wrote down as “the national interest.” Am I right or am I right? There’s no such thing as a national interest. Cooperation, choice, and trade-offs do exist, though, and I think they can walk us through a hypothetical federation between Japan and the US.
Michelangelo rightly decries the fact that Japan, a country with 126 million people in it (California has 40 million) should get 114 senators. Yet 10 senators seems far too few to give up sovereignty for federation. This appears to be a stubborn impasse, right? Wrong! One of the great benefits of cooperation is having to learn new things.
The 47+ prefectures of Japan, for example, have been in use since 1888. The prefectures had steadily been declining in number as the Meiji oligarchy began in earnest to nation-build in what is now Japan. Up until the surrender of Japan to the US, these prefectures were not representative and had little say in how each prefect was to be governed. MacArthur’s constitution gave these 47+ prefectures some autonomy in 1947, but recent attempts at reforming the administrative units of Japan have called for the abolition of these prefectures in favor of fewer administrative units that will also have much more independence from Tokyo. The policymakers who want to take this track are not creating these fewer administrative units out of thin air, either. Rather, reformists are calling for representative units to be based on the unofficial cultural areas of the country that have been around for centuries. Check out the map:
A cooperative approach to tackling free-riding and imperial expenses would be to reach out to the factions that want fewer administrative states with more autonomy. Adding anywhere from 8 to 14 administrative units into the Madisionian system is much more doable than, say, trying to incorporate 47 administrative units, especially since the latter units have little experience with the autonomous governance that federalism requires of its “states.” At most, there would be 28 additional members of the Senate. The costs associated with free-riding would be gone, and the Japanese people would get the benefits of being a part of the most powerful military the world has ever seen.
Would 28 Senate seats be enough to give up sovereignty? I don’t know, but I do know that the status quo is unsustainable and so, too, are current alternatives.
To finally answer Michelangelo’s question (“From a purely libertarian basis what regions would you offer federation with? Or, if you’d offer federation to all of them, which regions would you offer federation with first?”), I’d start with the Canadian provinces and Mexican states (though I would make it clear that any region is welcome to apply for membership). Then I’d approach the Caribbean islands, the administrative units in Western Europe (including the Baltic states but excluding Ukraine), and the administrative units in Japan and South Korea. Good neighbors and military allies.
My reasoning behind this approach is simply that 1) most of these regions are almost as rich as the United States, 2) they have a good history of actually being representative of their constituents, 3) they have a long history of either interacting with the Madisonian system or acknowledging its tremendous benefits, and 4) they have experience with being somewhat autonomous in a federal system (a federal system that is much less liberal than the one found in the US, but a federal system nonetheless).
Again, I’m not opposed to allowing poor regions to apply and join such a federation, but I think they would be less inclined to do so. Why? Because poorer states are more parochial, more protectionist, and more likely to be uncooperative than rich ones. If regions within these poorer states wanted to apply for membership, we should be open to it, but we’d have to recognize that these poorer regions have a long, hard slog ahead of them. They would, for example, have to market reasons for why they should no longer be a part of a poor state, and they’d have to do it under the harsh watch of the said poor state. Not an easy task, to be sure, but it can be done and the Madisonian federation should be open to the idea of picking apart post-colonial states if it means federating with an oppressed (or poorly governed) region.
Why “post-colonial”? Because of Realpolitik. Entertaining applications from the likes of Tibet or Chechnya is too risky. Entertaining applications from Baluchistan or Biafra? I’d have no problem risking the ire of Pakistan or Nigeria if it meant partnering up with people who want a better life and are willing to cooperate in order to get it.
PS: I think the dialogue in the ‘comments’ thread of this 2014 piece is also worth reading in tandem with my thoughts on Michelangelo’s comment here.
Dr Ranjan sent me the following email:
Dear Brandon and gang
I wish you and to your family members a merry Christmas in advance. Hope you will have a great time this Christmas.Have fun
Folks, NOL is coming up on 5 years as a cooperative venture. It’s been a lot of fun and it wouldn’t have the feel it has without your continued support and encouragement. I’d like to extend a warm welcome to two new members of the consortium: Dr Vincent Geloso and William Rein. Behold:
Vincent Geloso has recently completed his PhD dissertation at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the field of economic history. He specializes in law and economics, development economics, and economic demography. He has published articles in Journal of Population Research, Essays in Economic and Business History and Economic Affairs.
Vincent was my roommate at a FEE summer seminar back in 2009 (the same summer I met Rick at an IHS summer seminar). He’s from Quebec but is a Canadian first and foremost. You can start checking out his non-NOL work here. If you are considering a non-profit to give to for this holiday season, I highly recommend IHS and FEE. Just look at what their work has done in regards to NOL. And:
William Rein is a sophomore studying Philosophy and Criminal Justice at Chico State University. He married jurisprudence a long time ago, starting seeing modern physics on the side, and just recently has been hooking up with phenomenology. Every now and then he gets caught up in journalism and opinion writing.
You can start checking out his non-NOL work here. I have many a fond memory of Chico State (and some not-so-fond ones too). Please, be on your best behavior for at least their first couple of posts!
Chhay Lin sent me this email detailing a rough timeline for the NOL art project he initiated:
I met my friend about the art project last weekend. He told me that he is experimenting with an Escher-esque logo/banner for NOL. He doesn’t know how long it will take, and is not working on it full-time. In the meantime he is busy moving out from the city of Breda to Rotterdam, opening his own workshop, and making portraits for a book that he and I are working on. 🙂 I’ll keep you up to date if I hear anything new about the NOL artsy project.
His friend, Cheerted Keo, has a website that you can check out here.
Readers might be mistaken into thinking that I am some kind of statist or rabid interventionist because I often put forth arguments that are nowhere to be found at the Cato Institute or the Mises Institute when it comes to American foreign policy.
I have argued that the federation of countries would be a good idea. I have argued that multilateralism is of the utmost importance when it comes to solving problems. I have no problem using IGOs like the UN or the IMF to bolster diplomacy. I have entertained the notion that the US should take a back seat in hot spots in order to better bait autocratic states into committing blood and treasure to the said hot spot, and then unleashing hell. Sanctions are dumb and never work, but building closer trading ties with an adversary’s enemies is a underdeveloped path.
Statist AF, right?
Wrong!
I am trying to put forth alternatives to “boots on the ground.” I understand that military interventions are a bad thing. I don’t want “boots on the ground.” I understand that the costs far outweigh the benefits. I understand that war is the health of the state. What I don’t understand is how “doing nothing” is a libertarian position. Dogmatic slogans made us lazy a century ago. We lost our claim to the title “liberal” because of it. Dogmatic slogans made us lazy a century and a half ago, and we lost our claim to the title “internationalist” because of it. What will our laziness cost us today?
Boots on the ground? We should be so lucky.
Notes On Liberty 