Libertarian Theory of War. 1. Problem Statement.
Libertarianism is a worldview holding that every person belongs to themselves, that no one has the right to initiate violence with impunity, and that peaceful voluntary exchange enriches both parties involved… It would seem, where in all of this is there room for such a phenomenon as war?
1.1.1. Definition of War
Nevertheless, even in a society consisting of the purest libertarians, there is still room for conflicts. Conflict is a state in which the same object (the subject of conflict) is viewed as a means to achieve different goals, where one use hinders another or even makes it impossible.
Behavioral tactics in a conflict are influenced by many factors, from the subjective importance of the subject of conflict to the balance of power. Nevertheless, it is worth highlighting a category such as the justice of claims. This is the subjective feeling that the value of the subject of conflict for one party or another is higher than the presumed damage that this party will cause to the involved persons through its participation in the conflict. Why is this category needed? It is used for moral assessments of the conflict: libertarian morality requires entering a conflict on the side whose position is perceived as just.
Take a conflict involving two subjects. For one, the value of the subject of conflict is quite high, or at least so it appears to others. For example, it concerns a threat to their home. For the other, the value of the subject of conflict in the eyes of others is not as great; for example, it concerns the convenience of building a road directly across the plot of land with the house belonging to the first party. If the homeowner passively watches the demolition of their house without receiving compensation, the conflict is obviously unjust: the value of the subject of conflict is high, and the damage caused by the homeowner is zero. Libertarian morality requires intervening and offering help to the homeowner.
If the builder offers compensation for the demolition, opinions on justice may now diverge: some believe that the builder will ultimately suffer damage covering the cost of the house, others will consider the damage insufficient. But all evaluations are subjective in any case. What is a dilapidated shack to some is a family ancestral home to another. And even if everyone around is certain that the compensation offered for the demolition is more than fair, the homeowner may disagree. And, seeing a bulldozer at their borders, opens fire on it. Now, this is war.
War is a conflict in which the requirement for the opponent’s survival is not a limiting factor for at least one of the parties. Simply put, war is a conflict in which parties are ready to kill.
Why is the readiness to kill such an important factor that such conflicts are placed in a separate category, and a separate theory is even invented for them? Because: (a) the killing of one of the parties to the conflict resolves the conflict with that party, (b) the killed party has suffered damage that will be interpreted by anyone as very significant, (c) the killed party no longer causes damage to anyone. In other words, killing is by default interpreted as an unjust resolution of a conflict. Moreover, an irreversibly unjust one, since the deceased can no longer directly receive any compensation.
Thus, war creates a strong moral demand for libertarians to enter the conflict, resulting in more and more participants becoming involved. That is, war is a conflict with positive feedback and is therefore prone to expansion. In order for wars in a libertarian society, for which we are formulating our theory, not to acquire a catastrophic character, they must be countered with negative feedback: a set of factors that will extinguish wars. And this must be done within the framework of libertarian ideology.
1.1.2. Conceptual Subjects and Their Relations
Conceptual subjects are a brilliant invention of humanity, allowing it, in particular, to rationalize the behavior of people in prolonged conflicts, despite such a factor as death. People simply continue to consider a person as a subject, despite the fact that they have died. Well, they died. Now they are a spirit. A spirit still has needs, including the need for justice. Therefore, the spirit demands that the killer suffer proportionate damage; otherwise, the spirit will continue to fight.
How do you end a conflict that led to killing? You must appease the spirit. The killer brings peace to the spirit of the victim and receives purification—that is, the recognition by others that the conflict is over. And why shouldn’t it end if everyone saw clear signs: the dead are satisfied. Now they are the peaceful dead. There is no longer a need to fight for the deceased; let’s disperse. It is good when everyone knows what and how appeases the spirits.
However, it is extremely rare that an invention can be used in only one way. People feel a sense of community among themselves, and for them, this is clear evidence: this community also has a spirit. Spirits of the clan, the tribe, and then of larger communities appear. And these powerful conceptual subjects cannot be appeased so easily. The notion arises that an attack on one member of the community is an attack on all members of the community, for they share a common spirit. Therefore, take up your spear and join the ranks.
The process of centralization in the world of spirits gradually led to the appearance of hierarchical pantheons, and then to monotheism, and the demands of these conceptual subjects were no longer limited to collective defense. On the contrary, in something like Islam, the spirit demands war against the entire outside world until the last infidel submits to the general order of appeasing the spirit.
The damage from wars between carriers of such large and aggressive conceptual subjects led to the fact that in 1648, as a result of the Peace of Westphalia, spirits of peoples, which were more in line with geography and logistics, came to the fore, and for the last few centuries we have lived in a world governed by such conceptual subjects as nation-states.
Denying the existence of conceptual subjects is like denying the existence of imaginary numbers. How can there be no imaginary numbers if they help in the calculations of mathematical models of physical phenomena? How can there be no conceptual subjects if they unite huge masses of people for a common action? Therefore, the libertarian theory of war cannot avoid taking into account this important factor affecting war.
Let us give an example of how the concept of conceptual subjects is used to analyze a concept popular in libertarian discourse—statism.
If, instead of the long term “conceptual subject,” we use the shorter word “spirit,” which possesses a powerful semantic trail, then statism can be described as possession by an evil spirit. An evil spirit forces a person to sacrifice their own interests for the interests of the spirit. In the case of statism, we are talking about such a spirit as the state.
Statists are ordinary people. They are just as much individualists, just as much egoists, and just as capable of voluntary interactions as libertarians. They are simply possessed by an evil spirit. This spirit wakes up, abruptly changing their thoughts and behavior, when certain triggers are activated. For some, the spirit reacts to flags, emblems, and the sounds of the anthem; for others, to the figure of a leader, to a uniform or a service ID; for some, words about civic duty are enough—in short, there are techniques for awakening the spirit, but usually it sleeps.
The most reliable way to awaken the spirit of statism is to convince a person that the state is threatened by enemies.