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FROM:
http://blog.populistamerica.com/2009/01/federalism-and-the-free-state-project/

While all eyes are on Washington, D.C. to see what comes out of the Obama Administration and the new Democratic Congress, a different political scenario is playing out in each American state. Under the American federal system, states vary quite substantially on a number of public policies. Some states have income taxes and others do not. Some states ban smoking in all public places, workplaces, and restaurants, and others do not ban it at all.

While most states avoided the fiscal profligacy of the federal government over the past eight years, the economy and recent over-spending are hitting some states harder than others. My own state, New York, is facing a $15 billion deficit, and the governor is pushing 137 new or increased taxes or fees to close it. New Yorkers already “enjoy” the second highest state and local tax burden in the country, at 11.7% of personal income. Meanwhile, New Hampshirites pay only 7.6% of income to state and local governments, and the rate in Alaska is lowest of all: 6.4%.

In a forthcoming study published by the Mercatus Center, entitled Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Economic and Personal Freedom, co-author William Ruger and I discover that New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota outpace all others on both “pocketbook” and “lifestyle” freedoms considered together, while New York is by far the worst.

We argue that the outliers at the bottom and the top owe their status not to a marked surplus or dearth of libertarian ideology in the voting populace, but to unique institutions, such as New Hampshire’s world’s-largest legislature (in terms of voters per legislator) and elected executive council, and Colorado’s Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (now suspended).

Taking advantage of the powers that states enjoy to set many of their own economic and social policies, the Free State Project proposes that classical liberals and libertarians move to a single, low-population state to advance the idea of strictly limited government and robust individual freedom.

The idea is that a few thousand savvy activists can leverage many more votes. The state they’ve chosen? New Hampshire. (Full disclosure: I’m one of them, although I don’t yet live in New Hampshire.) So far several Free Staters have been elected to the legislature, and about 500 have moved to the state. If this “freedom migration” continues, American politics might get much more interesting.

Guest Author Dr Jason Sorens is Assistant Professor, Dept. of Political Science, University at Buffalo, SUNY

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2009/01/protection-rackets.html

Saturday, 24 January 2009

PROTECTION RACKETS

Diving into military theory (again).
A core dynamic behind the emergence of the nation-state was it's ability to run a successful protection business (aka racket). A system that has been growing since the treaties of Westphalia in the 1600s. The protection business is relatively simple:

It is a monopoly. It has exclusive ownership over the use of violence. As a monopoly, it must crush all internal competitors.
It defends its monopoly from outside interests -- as in warfare with nation-state and non-state competitors.
It charges the customers (individuals and businesses) within its geographical areas of control for this service. This isn't optional. Customers presumably benefit from this protection.
Historically Successful Protection Rackets

So what made the nation-state formula for protection so superior to its competitors during its ascent over the last 400 years? It's simple. It delivered value to its customers. Let's dive into this with a paper by Charles Tilly (War Making and State Making as Organized Crime). He cites the economic historian Frederic Lane's simple formula for success:

The protection monopoly must generate tributes in excess of the costs necessary to maintain it's monopoly.
The protection monopoly must generate protection rents for its customers. The amount the customers benefit gain from the protection of their interests less the amount they pay for it.
Both tributes and protection rents must be positive for long term success. Further, the nation-state that minimized protection tributes in favor of maximizing protection rents grew the fastest (historically, that was partly accomplished through economies of scale).
The Status of Modern Protection Rackets

The protection formula broke down in the latter half of the 20th Century as the nation-state became more complex. Key elements of this breakdown include:

First, the advent of nuclear weapons made full scale war impossible (van Creveld).
Second, the emergence of a global marketplace with global property rights meant that the commercial interests of the nation-state's remaining customers became more powerful than nation-state's interests. This restricted/limited warfare even more.
The result has been a slow unraveling of the nation-state's ability to maintain it's monopoly over violence (and much more) within and outside its geographical borders. This has created a gap in protection at the local level into which small violent groups are now quickly converging. Finally, there is additional evidence that the economies of scale that drove the growth of earlier protection monopolies has broken down.
What this Means

It's likely that small groups that emerge to seize local control (as in, create a TAZ), will eventually converge on the successful protection model (delineated above). In fact, we have already seen this shift with groups as diverse in origin as the Sendero Luminoso to the Taliban to the Zetas to MEND. These groups will be successful in so far as they:
Stay decentralized and cooperative (re: opposition to the state) to ensure protection efficiency. There are few economies of scale in this environment given the leverage offered by globalization and the presence of legacy nation-states as barriers to growth.
Generate positive protection rents for their customers. Deliver value. Protection monopolies that expand into the core businesses of its customers will become vulnerable and inefficient. Expand the business interests of customers by eliminating competition when possible and ensuring market access. Charge competitive rates and not monopoly rents (sufficient tribute but not excessive).
Diversify. To maximize potential tributes while still delivering accelerating protection rents to customers, a protection racket should expand its customer list. This means extending protection from drug smuggling to generic smuggling (across the entire range of potential goods) to generic commercial activity (standard corporate and small business interests). Create a vibrant local commercial environment across the entire spectrum of potential activity.

NOTE: I think this is a nice expansion of the theoretical groundwork laid down in Brave New War, with the goal of laying out the entirely new framework for how 21st Century warfare will work. Of course, since I don't work for anybody exclusively, it is available to everybody. Use as you see fit.
Posted by John Robb on Saturday, 24 January 2009 at 09:08 AM | Permalink
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Comments

Where does Hamas fit in?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,603203,00.html

Posted by: lewy14 | Saturday, 24 January 2009 at 09:42 AM

This was the End Game for Rome.

The government could no longer keep the people safe from the barbarians but taxed the shit out of them.

In the end it was better to accept the barbarians as the new ruler

Posted by: Robert Paterson | Saturday, 24 January 2009 at 10:13 AM

Two points:

1) The economies of scale is crucial here.

2) "Protection" not only includes warfare and police but such services as healthcare. The power of the medieval church, and of priestly castes in general, in large part results from their ability to provide such forms of protection.

Posted by: Duncan Kinder | Saturday, 24 January 2009 at 11:27 AM

Two notes about your very good post. It's a typical systemic approach you describes by using the leverage power which lies in every system.
Second is about a great thinker about violence : René Girard. He is French but has written many things in English. His main point is about spacegoats. A spacegoat is necessary to evacuate violence within any societies. Could be interesting to view the Irak or Afghan war along his point of view. Gives new angles of approach.

Stolen from the onion

Vice Presidential Handlers Lure Cheney Into Traveling Crate
JANUARY 13, 2009 | ISSUE 45•03

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WASHINGTON—A team of nine specially trained handlers have successfully lured outgoing vice president Dick Cheney into a reinforced steel traveling crate in order to transport him back to his permanent enclosure in Casper, WY, official sources reported Monday. "He's a smart one. Once he sees the crate, he gets pretty nippy, but we've learned a few tricks over the years," chief VP wrangler Ted Irving breathlessly said while applying pressure to a deep gash on his forearm. "If we break a rabbit's legs and throw it in there, he will eventually go in to finish it off. Doesn't work with dead rabbits, though. Cheney only eats what he kills." Irving said that the latest vice presidential relocation went much more smoothly than September's diplomatic trip to Georgia, which was delayed for several hours after Cheney mauled three secret service agents and escaped inside the White House walls.

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