Good Times With Peter Leeson

To read Peter Leeson’s defense of anarchy, you’d come away from it thinking that anarchy was actually a good idea. And although I have numerous objections to his work, my friend Josh does a far better job of dissecting Leeson’s work. But I wanted to object to one particular argument that Leeson, and his other anarcho-capitalists, frequently make: that negative behaviors are no big deal in the long run.

 To illustrate this, Leeson makes the following argument -

Imagine you go to a restaurant and order a $30 filet mignon. When your food arrives you take a bite and realize the restaurant has served you a $10 flank steak instead. The restaurant has defrauded you. You could take the owner to court; but then you realize that the simple time cost this will entail is not worth what you will recover even if you win. Although in principle government exists to adjudicate this matter, in practice it does not.

Your dining experience is a little slice of anarchy. Knowing this, restaurant owners should perpetually serve $10 flank steaks to customers who order filet mignon. Of course restaurants don’t do this. And the reason they don’t is because they realize that if they do, you’ll stop eating there and tell everyone you know to boycott the restaurant as well. Even without government, Smith’s “invisible hand” leads the restaurant to do the right thing.

This is a common argument made by anarcho-capitalists like Leeson. In it, we see that the negative behavior - serving the incorrect food in an attempt to steal profit from the customer - will eventually end as the restaurant’s reputation is so badly damaged that it loses its customers. Sure, a few people have been defrauded out of their money, but over the long run, so what?

There are two very serious problems with this sort of argument. The first is that comparing steaks to the very serious suffering of Somalis is slightly offensive. “Oh, see how I got defrauded out of my $20 bucks for a steak? That’s like 300,000 Somalis dying in an anarchist state. Sure, it sucks in the immediate, but over the long term, so what?” Reading through Leeson’s work - and the work of some other anarcho-capitalists - you see very real human suffering compared to all sorts of pain-in-the-ass experiences, as if there is anything there worth comparing.

The second, and more objectionable, part of Leeson’s argument is that he affords himself and his beliefs an infinite amount of time to work themselves out. In other words, while he gives any form of government approximately no time whatsoever to work itself out, he maintains that places like Somalia will eventually be in tip-top shape. How convenient for his beliefs. It makes it remarkably easy to gloss over 300,000 dead Somalis if, in however long it takes for anarchy to actually work, things eventually get better.

But that’s just it; short term suffering, especially on the scale of the Somali experience, does matter. Glossing it over because, some day, things will be better? That seems cruel at best and downright ignorant at worst. And although Leeson, and other anarcho-capitalists can try, attrocities cannot be ignored simply because they undermine their own beliefs. What’s strange is that the Leesons of the world insist that those of us who believe in some sort of government owe everybody else the same honesty, that we must admit that governments have failed to lived up to expectations. I’ll be the first in line to do so. But ignoring the serious concerns that some of us have over human suffering in an anarchist state, or by simply comparing it to a flank staek, one wonders how seriously Leeson is actually taking things.

(For the record, I have met Peter Leeson, and he seems like a very decent man. He also looks an awful lot like the kid from Rushmore.)

Briefly, On Religion

I’m no fan of religion. Any search of my website will reveal my total disdain for social conservatives, although my frustrations aren’t limited to those folks. I struggle to understannd the religious inclinations of friends of mine. How can anybody possibly believe this nonsense?

Despite my feelings, real expressions of religious values floor me. After a school shooting, some of the affected Amish attended the funeral of the shooter. Whereas many religious Americans express their religion as a function of hatred for groups different than themselves, these Amish declared themselves unable to hate the shooter.

The same goes for the man who built this place of prayer above. This House of Prayer is located on Hilton Head Island, a place that could generously be described as having a questionable racial history. The man who built it, a man named Moses, is surrounded by wealth. I would venture to guess that he is not nearly as rich as those surrounding him, but some of what he does have went into this small structure. It is awe inspiring, and even though I share nothing religious with this person, the expression of his beliefs is quite the sight to behold.

My Beard

I shaved off my beard a little more than a month ago. This was a tragic mistake. Needless to say, I am doing everything in my power to bring it back. By that, I mean I have stopped shaving again. I plan to go at least until the second week in May, but ideally through the summer.

The thing about shaving is that it is awful. My face hurts. My skin burns and breaks out. I’m cranky because I look like a 12-year-old without facial hair. And now, because I’ll be going after my PhD in Political Science for the next four years, there’s no reason to aggressively be part of the square community. That means I have no responsibility to shave.

Jackpot.

Tearing Down Old Places

Inexplicably, this building is going to be torn down. Allegedly replacing it? Condos. Condos. Because my town is desperately in need of more condominiums. It seems as though there isn’t a single place left in the Morgantown/Westover/Star City triumvirate that hasn’t been condomiumed.

This was the General Woodworking building, a gorgeous wooden warehouse. I remember going there with my father for supplies, right up until its closure. The store used to feature a neon “General Woodworking” sign that could be seen anywhere in Morgantown with a view of the river.

Incidentally, the building exists alongside the remaining railroad line running through town. Putting condominiums directly next to an active railroad line is stupid. Who on Earth is going to pay $225,000 (housing costs a lot if you live here, but not so much if you’re from most other places in the country) for a building that will be rattled twice daily by the rumbling coaltrains?