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Some moves in the right direction but must try harder…

There were two articles on the Rittenhouse Review which rather interested me:

Firstly the blog’s author, James Capozzola, displays what I can only describe as a very healthy disdain for democracy (which I certainly share) by applauding the fact that people in Pennsylvania will not be allowed to vote for Ralph Nader for President of the USA. I have commented on this subject before on Samizdata.net.

Now if only Kerry and Bush could also be disqualified…

Secondly, there is an article which mentions that the 427th Transportation Company (based in Pennsylvania, hence being of particular interest to Philadelphia based Rittenhouse Review) was deployed to Iraq with insufficient body armour and GPS sets. He approvingly notes that after he reported on this, one of his readers privately purchased a GPS set and intends to mail it out to Iraq for the unit to use. I too heartily approve of this and would love to see a significant proportion of the military’s funding gradually replaced with voluntary subscriptions, something I would happily contribute to myself. However I must take issue with the phrase:

Imagine it: The U.S. military, notably reservists, relying on family, friends, neighbors, and perfect strangers to fill gaping holes in the Pentagon supply chain.

I would prefer to think of it as ‘members of society with a vested interest in survival and an affinity for the people defending them’, rather than the more pejorative ‘perfect strangers’, filling the spaces left in the Pentagon’s supply chain which are theirs to rightly fill.

17 comments to Some moves in the right direction but must try harder…

  • atlas

    Um, I don’t think he really intended people to read either of those points the way you have!

  • Ted Schuerzinger

    Do you think Capozzola would use the term ‘perfect strangers’ regarding the way state-run health care or welfare is run?

  • Shannon Love

    Actually, private sources filling in the gaps in the military supply systems has a long history in America.

    In the American Civil War entire regiments were funded by private individuals. In WWI private sources funded medical care, necessities such as socks and blankets and entertainment. In the early days of WWII, soldiers relied on people back home mailing them all kinds of things including weapons and vehicles. In Vietnam, the military had no snipers or sniper weapons. The first snipers purchased civilian deer rifles from their own pockets and with donations from veterans groups.

    Sadly, the modern military supply system is setup primarily to avoid corruption and waste not to get supplies to the those fighting as quickly as possible.

  • I signed a petition to get Nader on the ballot. Shouldn’t that be enough to get him on?

    The California recall showed that people can managed over 100 candidates. Electronic voting with a paper trail would facilitate this handidly.

    Either way, I would rather libertarian ideals be enacted through limits on government, and not limits on people and how they elect representatives.

    I see nothing positive about 3rd party candidates being barred from elections.

  • Mace

    Regarding citizen contributions for military equipment:

    Ever hear of the FREE RIDER problem?

  • Ever hear of the FREE RIDER problem?

    Then please explain this (Link)

  • Mace

    So we’ll have only a small group of citizens funding national defense while the all others will enjoy the benefits while avoiding their “fair” share of the true costs?

    I suddenly have the urge to stop funding Social Security (here in the US).

  • Sandy P

    Do you have any idea of the tolerance required on that body armor if it’s the vest I’m thinking about?

    My husband does, he’s in mfg.

    Or are you for giving our reserves the platinum option even when they’re not at war?

  • I suddenly have the urge to stop funding Social Security (here in the US).

    Good, as that is exactly what I would like to see. Why the hell should you be forced to contribute to a redistributive thing like ‘Social Security’ when there are so many private alternatives available that work?

    If you are responsible and plan for future eventualities, why should you be put at a disadvantage because others are feckless and imprudent? And why should the state crowd out charitable sources for people in need when clearly the state is not the only party who may be willing to help and is almost never the optimum solution to social problems?

    But you did not actually answer my question… the oldest lifeboat service in the world runs just fine without a penny of tax money in Britain and yet according to the notion of ‘the free rider problem’, the people who benefit from it will not pay for it because no one is forcing them to and so the service could only exist if the state funds it with coercive taxation. And yet it has worked for just fine since 1824.

    Perhaps civil society is actually a stronger thing that statists like to admit. Just because the state does not do something that does not mean it will not get done if there is a genuine need.

    There may indeed be a ‘minimum level’ of coercive funding needed for keep a military at an appropriate level of capability but why should that therefore mean that non-coercive sources of funding should not be used when clearly so many people do see the value of having a powerful military?

  • Pete(Detroit)

    Indeed, Military being one of the few “appropriate” uses of My Tax Dollars, I tend to be for it.
    Not that I care to see it squandered, but…
    The answer to your question, Perry, is that privately funded options may well not meet spec – suppose teh GPS units are hackable, givign away the locatin of the troops using them? The air conditioners run at the wrong voltage or too high an amperage to be useful.
    Delivery might well also be an issue – I’d hate to think that ‘real’ supplies were left back to make room on the cargo plane for ‘mail’ containing stuff that doesn’t work.
    And lets not forget the flea collars that many guys wrote home for, that reacted badly w/ nerve agents / counter agents and were at one time carrying (part of) the blame for Gulf War Syndrome…

    On the other hand, you do, as usual, make an excellent point – and given the caveats above, I see no problem w/ it.

  • Mace

    “There may indeed be a ‘minimum level’ of coercive funding needed for keep a military at an appropriate level of capability”

    And you have acknowledged my point. I don’t think we disagree that much.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    The idea of a military using equipment paid for directly by the public is an intriguing one. To avoid problems with quality and compatibility, perhaps a list of preferred items can be distributed to prospective sponsors? Or even better yet, simply provide a minimum level of funding through taxation, and rely on the public for additional, voluntary funds.

    Treating the military as a charity organization may seem demeaning, but a rational society aware of the benefits of a well armed defense would probably be able and willing to foot the bill.

    TWG

  • Guy Herbert

    Perry: Perhaps civil society is actually a stronger thing that statists like to admit.

    Perhaps? Of course it is.

    Statists cannot deem civil society in any way adequate in its handling of the problems it tackles or the moral justification of their policy is undermined. Only compelled, controlled, standardised, universalised provision can be permissable: anything else is by definition unfair and insufficient. That axiomatic belief is what both permits and leads the state to colonise or displace voluntary organisations. That’s what causes isolated problem in fragmented voluntary sectors to be treated as national disaster, to be averted by imposing a single system, regardless of its structural faults.

    The Anthropic Principle highlights the emptily unrebuttable claim that the only universe we can observe is the one we live in, and therefore that it must necessarily be one we can live in. Creationists of one stripe or another take this as a deep statement of great portent, and great comfort from it.

    You could call the assertion of the essential incompleteness of voluntary provision the Pseudophilanthropic Principle. It is trivially true, equally without logical consequence, but has similarly great ones as a matter of faith and motivation.

  • Another answer to Mace’s free rider objection would perhaps involve the extreme subjectivity of many alleged free rider benefits. Surely many would say that the same military spending that some (like Perry) see as a benefit is to them a menace to all that they hold dear. One man’s defence is another man’s provocatipon, etc.

    Another answer would run along the lines that hardly anything of any great substance or impact does not have a free rider angle to it. I paid nothing towards the cost of building the Forth Bridge or Stonehenge or Westminster Abbey, yet I enjoy these edifices a lot. (I am maybe forced to pay something towards their upkeep, but that’s a different thing.) Yet this did not stop the people who built these things. Civilisation, you might say, is one gigantic free ride for almost all of us. Yet there it is.

    But why is this a “problem”?

  • Sakura

    In Japan the NHK (equivalent of the BBC) runs on voluntary subscriptions. But it sends armies of collectors round the rabbit hutches every year to knock on the doors and request payment. The culture of shame prevents free riding: this is one aspect of the remarkable social peacefulness of a country where nearly everyone feels part of a single extended family.

    Other tastes are catered for by several commercial TV networks of surpassing awfulness, which everybody is forced to pay for through the hidden, unassessable tax advertisers build into the prices of goods and services.

  • NATE

    I was a member of the 427th and the vest and privite support we received was deeply appreacited

    Now if we can get some barbed wire along the roads to keep bad guys off it would help also