UPDATED: The rise of black market security firms
In Brazil, the slums of Rio have spawned illegal, for-profit, black market security firms to make neighborhoods safe as Brazilian state power decays.
While these counter-economic entrepreneurs are most likely NOT principled agorists, I do find it an interesting coincidence that we are seeing this news story just seven days after the Portugese translation of New Libertarian Manifesto was announced.
Agorists should, of course, be careful not to portray as heroic every illegal enterprise. Any one group can, in this nascent state of security market development, morph unpredictably into criminal (under libertarian law theory, rather than just statist legislation) red market protection rackets, bandits or even outright death squads. Still, they should be pointed to for now, at least, as an indication that the counter-economy wants to provide services where states fail to deliver them.
The challenge for agorists in such a situation is to point the way even further to the rise of black market arbitration enterprises — the bootstrapping of Law without the State! Note carefully, even now, how market incentives presage a future libertarian law code delivered by the market. The security firms or “militias” are not interested in hunting down drug dealers and smashing their silly cartels. They just want to protect their paying customers (the residents of the neighborhood) and what’s arguably their customers rightful property (the common areas of the neighborhood). As long as that’s the case, these are the good guys despite whatever nonsense gets spewed about them being “illegal”. Maybe not the Revolutionary Agorist Cadre, but honest businesmen so far, from what I can tell.
Hat tip to: Lew Rockwell and Jesse Walker
UPDATE: For a Brazilian response to the article, refer to the comment by Erick at Hit & Run. Erick is the same fellow who prepared the Portugese translation of New Libertarian Manifesto.
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That’s kind of encouraging. But sorely missing is a private judicial system, penal system, and libertarian legal code. It’s still far from libertarian anarcho-capitalism. If drug dealers are being aggressed against simply for being drug dealers then, in at least that way, its not different than statism except for the absence of taxation. What they should be doing is protecting the free market and individuals from aggression. This may be an instance of Friedmanite anarcho-capitalism where what force will be applied to is open to the highest bidder. I think this shows that it’s crucial to develop a libertarian legal code and judicial system first, like Rothbard advocates. Just letting these things evolve naturally, I think, will just lead to oppression and statism. States come to be precisely because it is natural for states to arise, without some kind of rational intervention to prevent it.
Actually, with regard to this:
“If drug dealers are being aggressed against simply for being drug dealers…”
That’s not the case at all. The drug dealers are being kicked out for what amounts to trespassing.
Trespassing on whose property? What about the people that want to buy drugs? By not allowing the drug dealers come into the favella they’re prohibiting those households that do want to buy drugs from obtaining them. I doubt every household is paying for the service of keeping drug dealers out of the favella. Just because some or even most households want that service, it does not turn the favella into common property. Each home is still private property.
Read the article.
First, I’m not arguing for “common property” in some of the more esoteric meanings, but simply “property” that happens to be *jointly held* by several owners (the residents of the slums). I’m saying that the common areas as conventionally understood (like the pool and clubhouse in a condo association) are rightfully the jointly held property of the residents as an association in straight Rothbardian terms. That the State’s competing but illegitimate claim to the purported “public property” is an obstacle to fully asserting those property rights is not relevant to the justice of the residents claim.
Secondly, there’s nothing in the article about going into homes or a desire to stamp out drugs qua drugs. The firms are protecting the “common areas” of the neighborhoods. While the drug dealers have a right to engage in their trade, they don’t have a right to do so on other people’s property without permission. Due to the violent risks inherent in the illegal drug trade (as it currently exists in Brazil), most of the residents clearly don’t want it in open air bazaar form in the common areas of their neighborhood.
Let’s try a hypothetical example…
If I want to be in the business of selling hand grenades, that’s fine. If I put my hand grenade vending machine in your condo associations clubhouse, that’s entirely different. It doesn’t matter if Crazy Harry and Loony Lucy want to buy hand grenades in the clubhouse if most of the other property owners don’t want that and are deadset against it.
What’s NOT being discussed is any aggression against the property SOLELY held by Crazy Harry or Loony Lucy — busting into their condo to take their hand grenades (although the condo association rules that they signed on for may contractually grant the association and their security vendors such a right).
Similarly, I could buy one share of Ford stock and that wouldn’t mean Ford (as a company) has a duty to obey my particular individual wishes if they contravene the wishes of most of the other stockholders.
If not every single household in given area are paying for this service, someone is being agressed against. There is someone that wants to buy drugs. Just the fact that the dealers are there tells you that’s the case. Why else would the drug dealers be there? How would you feel if you needed your heroin fix and these guys are forcibly ejecting your dealer out of the neighborhood? Obviously two parties are forcibly being prevented from contracting with each other.
I disagree for reasons I have already stated:
That’s a false analogy. When you buy a stock share you are entering into a collective arrangement. When someone buys a house they’re not buying a share of collective ownership of everyone else’s property. To say that it is legitimate for some, or even a majority, of homeowners in your neighborhood to pay to have roaming policemen forcibly preventing the pizza delivery guy from coming to your house is forced collectivism. That’s exactly that individualist anarchism is against.
I’m not aware that anyone is blocking drug *deliveries* to specific residences. If I was an arbitrator in a dispute over that, I’d certainly rule that the residents all have an implicit easement for that sort of thing.
What has *actually* been going on, as described in the article, is that drug dealers have been using the common areas of the neighborhood as if those were their own place of business. I’m asserting that the common areas of the neighborhood are rightfully the joint property of the residents (in ethical terms, regardless of the State calling them “public property”) and that nascent associations with (in aggregate) just claims can assert those claims, to include evicting itinerant recreational pharmaceutical peddlers, with a simple majority of the joint owners.
If someone has to travel a public road to get to a private home, and someone puts up a road block determine what goods will be allowed in which will be prohibited, that’s an aggression. If drug dealers are not being allowed on common roads, that’s exactly what’s happening. You’re assuming that each person who shares collective ownership in that road consents to everything that the majority says on who ought to be prohibited from traveling on that common road, but they don’t (Note that in this Rio case, it’s not necessarily even a majority, but may well be a minority. It is whoever is paying these private police). Again, if it is majority rule over that road, it is forced collectivism. It’s democratic statism. Unless those who own the road in common consented beforehand to leave the decisions on who travels on the common road to majority decision, or the highest bidder as is happening in Rio, it’s statism.
If someone has to travel a public road to get to a private home, and someone puts up a road block determine what goods will be allowed in which will be prohibited, that’s an aggression. If drug dealers are not being allowed on common roads, that’s exactly what’s happening. You’re assuming that each person who shares collective ownership in that road consents to everything that the majority says on who ought to be prohibited from traveling on that common road, but they don’t (Note that in this Rio case, it’s not necessarily even a majority, but may well be a minority. It is whoever is paying these private police). Again, if it is majority rule over that road, it is forced collectivism. It’s democratic statism. Unless those who own the road in common consented beforehand to leave the decisions on who travels on the common road to majority decision, or to the highest bidder as is happening in Rio, it’s no different than statism.
Once more, comments from Devon seem to be disappearing for unknown reasons. In this case, just one so far. I’ve also heard from him via email that he’s having trouble posting new comments because of some as yet unspecified spam filter issue.
My own comment directly above this is a reply to a missing comment by Devon. I’ll repost it here below:
If someone has to travel a public road to get to a private home, and someone puts up a road block determine what goods will be allowed in which will be prohibited, that’s an aggression. If drug dealers are not being allowed on common roads, that’s exactly what’s happening. You’re assuming that each person who shares collective ownership in that road consents to everything that the majority says on who ought to be prohibited from traveling on that common road, but they don’t (Note that in this Rio case, it’s not necessarily even a majority, but may well be a minority. It is whoever is paying these private police). Again, if it is majority rule over that road, it is forced collectivism. It’s democratic statism. Unless those who own the road in common consented beforehand to leave the decisions on who travels on the common road to majority decision, or to the highest bidder, as is happening in Rio, it’s statism.
With regard to this:
“If someone has to travel a public road to get to a private home…”
…please refer to comment number eight by me.
You said “I’m asserting that the common areas of the neighborhood are rightfully the joint property of the residents (in ethical terms, regardless of the State calling them “public propertyâ€) and that nascent associations with (in aggregate) just claims can assert those claims, to include evicting itinerant recreational pharmaceutical peddlers, with a simple majority of the joint owners.”
You’re making a statist leap when you say that because these are common areas, that the MAJORITY, ought to be able to dictate who is allowed in these common areas. Again, that would be forced democracy. Precisely because they’re common areas, universal consent would be required. The only exception would be a prior contract accepted universally by all common owners to allow the majority or the highest bidders to rule the common area. Anything else is no different than statism.
Are you asserting that a company can only take action in a legitimate manner if stockholders are in 100% agreement on any specific course of action?
No, because when a person buys stock he buys it knowing that each holder has voting rights, as it stated in the by-laws of the corporation, and what the majority says goes. Stock is issued under that condition. Just because something is owned in common it is in no way implicit that the highest bidder or the majority may decide who is allowed to use that common area. That is a statist assumption. So, again, you’re making a bad analogy.
Just as it would be an aggression for one person to eject people of his choice off of a common road, it is aggression for a group of people to eject people of their choice off of a common road, whether that group comprises a minority or majority. Likewise, it is aggression for a faction who is merely the highest bidder to eject people off its choice off of a common road. And, remember that the drug dealers are also equal owners of the common areas. By not allowing them to use the common area, you’re violating their ownership rights. There was no prior agreement or condition to allow majority rule or highest bidder rule.
If such a dispute were brought before me as an arbitrator, the way I would rule is that while the minority of owners could not block the majority of owners from doing such basic things as providing security patrols in the jointly-owned common areas to ward off trigger-happy gangs, the majority of owners would be required to negotiate in good faith with the minority in splitting the association and its jointly-owned assets.
The fact that no voluntary stock purchase occurred is irrelevant. The common areas are jointly-owned and that’s the state’s fault. It’s a fait accompli, as I believe the term goes. To begin to enjoy the benefits of ownership, control of the asset has to be established.
Voting on what someone can do with their own property, by people who are not the owners of the property in question, is an act of aggression if that vote is backed by force. Among co-owners of a jointly-held parcel of property, though, it’s an entirely different matter. If the majority getting their way with the property they co-own with the minority is supposedly wrong, then the minority getting their way with the property they co-own with the majority would be JUST AS WRONG (not more wrong since rights aren’t additive).
The reality of a revolutionary situation likely will be such that people will either reconcile themselves to cooperating with their neighbors, figure out terms for an amicable property “divorce” or prepare for life to get really interesting and potentially very short. I imagine things will look a lot like a full employment program for excess lawyers — lots of talks, bargaining, disputes and arbitration.