The Privateproduction Of
THE PRIVATE
PRODUCTION OF
DEFENSE
Title Page
THE PRIVATE
PRODUCTION OF
DEFENSE
by
HANS-HERMANN HOPPE
Copyright Page
The Private Production of Defense first appeared in 1998 in the Essays in
Political Economy series published by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
© 2009 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and published under the
creative commons attribution License 3.0.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Section One: The Private Production of Defense
AMONG THE MOST POPULAR AND CONSEQUENTIAL BELIEFS OF OUR age is the belief in collective security. Nothing less significant than the legitimacy of the modern state rests on this belief.
Section Two: The Empirical Evidence
LET ME PAUSE HERE IN MY ABSTRACT THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS to take a brief look at the empirical evidence bearing on the issue at hand. As noted at the outset, the myth of collective security is as widespread as it is consequential. I am not aware of any survey on this matter, but I would venture to predict that the Hobbesian myth is accepted more or less unquestioningly by well over 90 percent of the adult population. However, to believe something does not make it true. Rather, if what one believes is false, one’s actions will lead to failure.
Section Three: How to Think About the Statist Response
STATISTS REACT MUCH LIKE SOCIALISTS WHEN FACED WITH THE dismal economic performance of the Soviet Union and its satellites. They do not necessarily deny the disappointing facts, but they try to argue them away by claiming that these facts are the result of a systematic discrepancy (deviancy) between “real” and “ideal” or “true” statism, respectively socialism.
Section Four: The Case for Private Security
HAVING RECONSTRUCTED THE MYTH OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY—the myth of the state—and criticized it on theoretical and empirical grounds, I now must take on the task of constructing the positive case for private security and protection. In order to dispel the myth of collective security, it is not just sufficient to grasp the error involved in the idea of a protective state. It is just as important, if not more so, to gain a clear understanding of how the non-statist security alternative would effectively work.
Section Five: More on Aggression Insurance
NOW A SECOND QUESTION MUST BE ADDRESSED. EVEN IF THE status of defensive protection as an insurable good is granted, distinctly different forms of insurance exist. Let us consider just two characteristic examples: insurance against natural disasters, such as earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes and insurance against industrial accidents or disasters, such as malfunctions, explosions, or defective products. The former can serve as an example of group or mutual insurance.
Section Six: Political Borders and Insurance
LET ME FIRST CONTRAST DEFENSE-PROTECTION INSURANCE WITH that against natural disasters. Frequently an analogy between the two is drawn, and it is instructive to examine if or to what extent it holds. The analogy is that just as every individual within certain geographical regions is threatened by the same risk of earthquakes, floods, or hurricanes, so does every inhabitant within the territory of the U.S. or Germany, for instance, face the same risk of being victimized by a foreign attack.
Section Seven: The Democratic State and Total War
THE ANALOGY TYPICALLY DRAWN BETWEEN INSURANCE AGAINST natural disasters and external aggression is fundamentally flawed. As aggression is never indiscriminate but selective and targeted, so is defense. Everyone has different locations and things to defend, and no one’s security risk is the same as anyone else’s. And yet the analogy also contains a kernel of truth.
