Strategy: Secession, Privatization, and the Prospects of Liberty

0:00Okay, it is time for me to begin my last and final lecture, except for the sixth that I have to give next week. The upshot of all my lectures is that the institution of the state represents somehow an error and a deviation from the normal and natural cause of civilization. And all errors are costly and have to be paid for.

0:45This is most obvious with errors concerning laws of nature. If a person errs regarding laws of nature, this person will not be able to reach his own goals. However, because the failure of doing so must be borne by each individual, that prevails in the area of the natural sciences, a universal desire to learn and to eliminate and correct one's errors. On the other hand, moral errors are costly also, but unlike in the case of natural sciences, the cost of moral errors must not, or at least not necessarily, be paid for by each and every person that commits this error.

1:45For instance, takes the error that we have talked here about in detail, takes the error of believing that one agency, the state, has an only one agency, has the right to tax and ultimate decision-making, that is that there must be different laws applying and unequal laws applying to the masters and serfs or the tax and the taxors, the legislators and A society that believes in this error can of course exist and last, as we all know, but this error must be paid for too.

2:42But the interesting thing is not everyone holding this error must pay for it equally. Rather, some people will have to pay for the error, while others, namely the agents of the state, actually benefit from the same error. Because of this, in this case, it would be mistaken to assume that there exists, so to speak, a universal desire to learn and to correct one's error. Quite to the contrary, in this case, it will have to be assumed that some people, instead of learning and promoting the truth, have actually a constant motive to lie, that is to maintain and promote falsehoods, even if they themselves recognize them as such.

3:39Let me explain this in a little bit more detail and repeat some of the basic insights that I tried to convey during this week. Once you accept the principle of government, namely that there must be a judicial monopoly and the power to tax, Once you accept this principle incorrectly as a just principle, then any idea or any notion of restraining or limiting government power and safeguarding individual liberty and property becomes illusory. Rather, under monopolistic auspices, the price of justice and protection will continually rise, and the quality of justice and protection will continually fall.

4:37A tax-funded protection agency is a contradiction in term. It is an expropriating property protector. and such an institution will inevitably lead to more taxes and ever less protection. Even if, as some classical liberals demand, even if a government would limit its activities exclusively to the protection of pre-existing private property rights, Then immediately the further question would arise how much security to produce and how many resources to spend on this particular good of protection.

5:32And motivated like everyone else by self-interest and disliking like everybody else to work. But equipped with the power, the unique power to tax, a government agent's answer will invariably be the same. That is, to maximize expenditures on protection, and as you can imagine, almost the entire wealth of a nation can in principle be expended on protection. The more money you can spend, the less you must work for this money, the better off you are.

6:38Now, in addition, a judicial monopoly will inevitably lead to a steady deterioration in the quality of justice and protection. If no one can appeal to justice except to government, justice will invariably be perverted in favor of government. Constitutions and Supreme Courts notwithstanding. After all, constitutions and supreme courts are state constitutions and state agencies. And whatever limitations to state activities these institutions might find or contain is invariably decided by agents of the very institution that is under consideration.

7:32It is unpredictable that the definition of property and the definition of protection will continually be altered. And the range of jurisdiction expanded to the government's advantage until ultimately the notion of universal and immutable human rights, and in particular, property rights, will disappear and will be replaced by that of law as government-made legislation and rights as government-given grants to people. Now, the results are all before our own eyes, and everyone can see them.

8:18The tax load that is imposed on property owners and producers has continually increased, making even the economic burden of slaves and serfs seem moderate in comparison. Government debt and hence future tax obligations has risen to breathtaking heights. Every detail of private life, of property, of trade and of contract is regulated by ever higher mountains of paper laws. Yet the only task that the government was ever supposed to assume, that of protecting life and property, it does not perform too well.

9:05To the contrary, the higher the expenditures on social, public and national security have risen, The more our private property rights have been eroded, the more our property has been expropriated, confiscated, destroyed and depreciated. The more paper laws have been produced, the more legal uncertainty and moral hazard has been created, and lawlessness has displaced law and order. Instead of protecting us from domestic crime and from foreign aggression, our government, which is equipped with enormous stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, aggresses against ever new Hitler's and suspected Hitlerite sympathizers anywhere and everywhere outside of its own territory.

10:04In short, while we have become ever more helpless, impoverished, threatened and insecure, our state rulers have become increasingly more corrupt, arrogant and dangerously armed. Now what can we do about all this? Let me begin by pointing out first something that I have mentioned already before. We have to recognize that states, as powerful and as invincible as they might seem, ultimately all their existence to ideas, and since ideas can in principle change instantaneously, states can be brought down and crumble practically overnight too.

10:57The representatives of the state are always and everywhere only just a small minority of the population over which they rule. The reason for this, as I explained, is as simple as it is fundamental. One hundred parasites can live comfortable lives if they suck out the lifeblood of thousands of productive hosts, But thousands of parasites cannot live comfortably off of a host population of just a few hundred. Yet if government agents are merely a small minority of the population, how can they enforce their will on this population and get away with it?

11:42The answer given by Rothbard and by de la Boitie and Eugen and Mises before him is only by virtue of the voluntary cooperation of the majority of the subject population with the state. Yet how can the state secure such cooperation? And the answer is only because and insofar as the majority of the population believes in the legitimacy of state rule, in the necessity of the institution of the state. This is not to say that the majority of the population must agree with every single state measure. In fact, it may well believe that many state policies are mistakes or even despicable.

12:29However, the majority of the population must believe in the justice of the institution of the state as such. And hence, that even if a particular government goes wrong or makes particular mistakes, that these mistakes are merely accidents which must be accepted and tolerated in view of some greater good provided by the institution of government. That is, people believe in the accident theory of government error, instead of seeing that there is a systematic reason behind all of this. Yet how can the majority of the population be brought to believe this accident theory?

13:15And the answer is, with the help of intellectuals. In the old days, that meant trying to mold an alliance between the state and the church. And in modern times, and far more effectively, this means through the nationalization or the socialization of education, through state-run and state-subsidized schools and universities. The market demand for intellectual services, in particular in the area of the humanities and the Social Sciences is not exactly high and also not exactly stable and secure. Intellectuals would be at the mercy of the values and choices of the masses, and the masses are generally uninterested in intellectual and philosophical concerns.

14:09The state, on the other hand, as Rothbard has noted, accommodates their typically over-inflated egos and is willing to offer the intellectuals a warm, secure and permanent birth in its apparatus, a secure income and a panoply of prestige. And indeed, the modern democratic state in particular has created a massive oversupply of intellectuals. Now, this accommodation does not guarantee correct status thinking, of course, and as well and as generally overpaid as intellectuals are, intellectuals will continue to complain how little their also important work is appreciated by the powers that be.

14:59But it certainly helps in reaching the correct status conclusions if one realizes that without the state, that is without the institution of taxation and legislation, one might be may be out of work entirely and may have to try one's hand at the mechanics of gas pump operation instead of concerning oneself with such pressing problems as alienation and equity and exploitation and the deconstruction of gender and sex roles or the culture of the eskimos, the Hopis and the Zulus. And even if one feels underappreciated by this or that incumbent government, intellectuals still realize that help can only come from another government and certainly not from an intellectual assault on the legitimacy of the very institution of government as such.

16:02Thus, it is hardly surprising that, as a matter of empirical fact, the overwhelming majority of contemporary intellectuals are far-out lefties and that even most conservative or free-market intellectuals such as, for instance, Milton Friedman or Friedrich Hayek, for instance, are fundamentally and philosophically also statists. Now from this insight into the importance of ideas and the role of intellectuals as bodyguards of the state and of statism, it follows that the most decisive role in the process of liberation, that is the restoration of justice and morality, must fall on the shoulders of what one might call anti-intellectual intellectuals.

16:54Yet, how can such anti-intellectual intellectuals possibly succeed in delegitimating the state in public opinion, especially if the overwhelming majority of their colleagues are statists and will do everything in their power to isolate and discredit them as extremists and crackpots? The first thing is this, because one must reckon with the vicious opposition from one's colleagues, and in order to withstand this criticism and to shrug it off, it is of utmost importance to ground one's own case not just in economics and in utilitarian arguments, in ethics and moral arguments, because only moral convictions provide one with the courage and the strength needed in ideological battle.

17:58Few people are inspired and willing to accept sacrifices if what they are opposed to is mere error and waste. More inspiration and more courage can be drawn from knowing that one is engaged in fighting evil and lies. And I'll come to that in a few minutes again. The second point I want to emphasize is this. It is equally important to recognize that one does not need to convert one's colleagues, is that one does not need to persuade mainstream intellectuals. As Thomas Kuhn has shown in particular, this converting one's colleagues is a rare enough event even in the natural sciences.

18:52In the social sciences, conversions among established intellectuals from previously are almost unheard of. Instead, one should concentrate one's efforts on the not yet intellectually committed young, whose idealism makes them particularly receptive to moral arguments and to moral rigorism. And likewise, one should circumvent, as far as is possible, pure academic institution and reach out to the general public, which has some generally healthy anti-intellectual prejudices into which one can easily tap.

19:45The third point is, and this makes me return to the importance of a moral attack on the state, it is essential to recognize that there can be no compromise on the level of theory. To be sure, one should not refuse to cooperate with people whose views are ultimately mistaken and Confused, provided that their objectives can be classified clearly and unambiguously as a step in the right direction of a destatization of society. For instance, one would not want to refuse cooperation with people who seek to introduce a flat income tax of 10 percent, although we would not want to cooperate with those who would want to combine this measure with an increased sales tax in order to achieve revenue neutrality, for instance.

20:43However, under no circumstances should such cooperation lead to or be achieved by compromising one's principles. Either taxation is just or it isn't. And once it is admitted that it is just, how is one then to oppose any increase in it? And the answer is, of course, then one has no argument left over. Put differently, compromise on the level of theory, as we find it, for instance, among moderate free marketeers such as Hayek or Friedman or even among some so-called minarchists, is not only philosophically flawed, but it is also practically ineffective and even counterproductive.

21:33Their ideas can be, and in fact are, easily co-opted and incorporated by the state rulers and by the statist ideology. In fact, how often do we hear nowadays from statists in defense of a statist agenda, There are cries such as, even Hayek or Friedman says such and such, or not even Hayek or Friedman would propose anything like this. Now personally, Friedman and Hayek might not be happy about this, but there is no denying that their work lends itself to this very purpose. and hence that they willy-nilly actually contributed to the continued and unabating power of the state.

22:23In other words, theoretical compromise or gradualism will only lead to the perpetuation of the falsehood, evils and lies of statism And only theoretical purism, radicalism and intransigence can and will lead first to gradual practical reform and improvement and possibly also to final victory. Accordingly, as an anti-intellectual intellectual in the Rothbardian sense, one can never be satisfied with criticizing various government follies, Although one might have to begin with criticizing such follies, but one must always proceed from there onto a fundamental attack on the institution of the state as such as a moral outrage and on its representatives as moral as well as economic frauds, liars and impostors, or as emperors without clothes.

23:33In particular, one must never hesitate to strike at the very heart of the legitimacy of the state, its alleged indispensable role as producer of private protection and security. I have already shown how ridiculous this claim is on theoretical grounds. How can an agency that may expropriate private property possibly claim to be a protector of private property? But hardly less important is it to attack the legitimacy of the state on empirical grounds. That is to point out and hammer away on the subject that after all states which are supposed to protect us are the very institution responsible for some estimated 170 million deaths in peacetime in the 20th century alone.

24:32is more than the victims probably of private crime in all of human history, and this number of victims of private crimes from which government did not protect us would have been even much lower if governments everywhere and at all times had not undertaken constant efforts of disarming its own citizens so that the governments in turn would become ever more effective killing machines. Instead of treating politicians with respect then, one's criticism of them should be significantly stepped up. Almost to a man, there might be a few exceptions, almost to a man politicians are not only thieves but in fact mass murderers or at least assistants, assistants of mass murderers.

25:26And how do they dare to demand our respect and loyalty? But will a sharp and distinct ideological radicalization bring about the results that we want to achieve? In this I have very little doubt. Indeed, only radical and in fact radically simple ideas can possibly stir the emotions of the dull and indolent masses and delegitimized government in their eyes. Let me quote Hayek to this effect, and from this you realize that even a guy who is fundamentally muddled and mistaken can of course have very important insights and that we can learn very We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.

26:37What we lack is a liberal utopia, a program which seems neither a mere defense of things as they are, nor a diluted kind of socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty, which is not too severely practical and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible. We need intellectual leaders who are prepared to resist the blandishments of power and influence and who are willing to work for an ideal, however small may be the prospects of its early realization. They must be men who are willing to stick to principles and to fight for their full realization, however remote.

27:24Free trade and freedom of opportunities are ideas which still may arouse the imaginations of large numbers, But a mere reasonable freedom of trade, or a mere relaxation of controls, is neither intellectually respectable nor likely to inspire any enthusiasm. Unless we can make the philosophical foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds, the prospects of freedom are indeed dark. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas, which was a mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

28:13Now Hayek, of course, did not heed his own advice and provide us with a consistent and inspiring theory. His utopia, as developed, for instance, in his Constitution of Liberty, is instead the uninspiring vision of the Swedish welfare state. But it is Rothbard, above all, who has done what Hayek recognized as necessary for the renewal of classical liberalism. That is, he has given us an inspiring utopia, something that is based on morals, and is capable of invigorating especially the young and intellectually uncommitted.

29:05Now let me end by also trying to offer some sort of inspiring utopia for intermediate goals, goals before we reach a fully destatized society. You realize that if we follow the logic of the state to its ultimate conclusion, then what we must demand is a world state. Because as long as there is no world state, then according to the statist ideology itself, there will be perpetual war among states because they are vis-a-vis each other in a state of anarchy, and the only ultimate solution would be that of a world state.

30:02This is precisely the vision that our leaders, so to speak, try to propagate. Of course, a world state under control of the United States, to be more precise. But in any case, it requires a world state. Instead, the intermediate utopia that I would suggest takes its cues from what we have learned from the Middle Ages And from the peculiar organization of Europe, which was responsible for the unique success of the Western world, that is the quasi-anarchistic structure, the highly decentralized structure of Europe.

31:06What we can propose as an intermediate goal, which I think is more inspiring than the world state, is the view of a world composed of tens of thousands of monarchs and lichtensteins and Swiss cantons and Singapore and Hong Kong and San Marinos and whatever small entities nowadays still exist. Recall, if we have a large number of small entities, political entities, Each of these entities will have to be relatively moderate and nice to its population, otherwise people will simply run away from it.

32:09Secondly, each one of these small units will have to engage almost necessarily in an open free trade policy. The United States as a large country can engage in protectionist measures because it has a large internal market and even if it would stop trading with the rest of the world, the United States population would experience a significant decline in standards of living, but people would not die. On the other hand, imagine Liechtenstein or Monaco or San Marino declaring no more free trade with the outside world or Hong Kong or places such as this.

33:02Then, of course, it would take a week or two and the entire population in these places would be wiped out. out. So small units must, in order to avoid starving to death or losing in particular their most productive individuals in no time, must engage in classical liberal policies. In addition, a large number of very small units would have to give up, of necessity, the institution of paper money, because there cannot be tens of thousands of different paper monies issued by tens of thousands of different political units.

33:57We would basically be back to a system of barter if we were to do this. The smaller the units are, the greater is the pressure in fact that we will return also to a commodity money standard which is entirely independent of government control. What I would recommend in particular for the United States and so forth is to realize that democracy will not abolish itself. The masses like to loot each other's, other people's property.

34:44They will not give up the right to continue doing this. However, there are still in the United States and in many other places, there are still small islands of reasonable people. And it is possible that on small local levels, so to speak, some people, some natural authorities can gain enough influence in order to induce them to secede from their central state. And if they do so, and if that accelerates, happens at many places simultaneously, it will be almost impossible for the central state to crush a movement such as this, because in order to crush a movement such as this, Again, public opinion has to be in favor of this and it would be difficult to persuade the public to attack, to kill, to destroy small places that have done nothing else but declare we are independent of the United States, We are independent of the central German state, and we are able to solve our own problem without the help of the central state.

36:18With this, I'm done. I thank you very much. I hope I enlightened and entertained you a little bit, and thanks again.

36:34Okay, we still have some time for questions. I answered all questions. I'm very happy If you were going to make the case for you as an individual to secede from whatever is out there, what would be your intellectual line of reasoning?

37:27That depends on the location. For instance, in Nevada, there is a big movement opposed to establishing this Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. So there it might be this subject that you could play up and say, Look, the federal government forces us to accept all this nuclear waste and put it in the middle of our state. And we have exhausted all judicial possibilities to combat this sort of stuff.

38:12There's only one possibility left, and that is we succeed. Again, I'm not saying necessarily that that will succeed. I'm saying if there would be sufficiently prominent, charismatic type leaders, the success of something like this cannot be ruled out. And I think it would be very difficult for the United States to send in armies to demolish these people Because there will be lots of people in the United States who say, what have they done? It's a perfectly reasonable attitude not to want to have this sort of stuff and to impose it on them. Why?

39:03In other places, there might be other reasons of this nature. So I don't think you can answer this with one clear-cut approach that depends on what are the particular complaints and misgivings that exist at place A and place B and what subject is particularly suitable in order to arouse the masses to agree to such a move. One of the really interesting chapters in your book is about conservatism and how libertarians should be conservative is one of the things you talk about.

39:48That's really at odds with Rothbard and it's really at odds with, I think, a lot of young people in this country. This is probably exacerbated by how things have already proceeded with this state breakdown of the family. They don't have a hard time being inspired by the ideal of currying their parents' authority. I wanted to hear you talk about that a little bit.

40:27All of these pieces that appear in the book were initially given as speeches at various conferences, and Murray Rothbard heard almost all of these speeches before, and he always came to me and said, Great Hans! Great Hans! So I'm somewhat skeptical to say that he would disagree, would disagree with that. He might have formulated sometimes things a little bit different than I did.

41:09Right. Yeah, Murray had some sort of... But again, he made also certain strategic errors in his life. I think he regretted, for instance, the coalition that he formed with the left during the Vietnam era, and he tried to create, and in this attempt I was a major player myself, he tried to create at the end of his life a coalition with old-style conservatives and the point on which these old-style conservatives like Paul Gottfried for instance and us libertarians could always The only way to agree was that the disagreements that we had had to be solved at the lowest possible level.

42:06That is, should abortion be permitted or should it not be permitted? If that is decided on the level of the central government, you have, regardless of what the decision is, half of the population up in arms. However, if this would be made a local issue, then almost entirely do the differences that exist between those who think that is legitimate and those who think that is illegitimate disappear. There might then be many places where it would be impossible to do this. And there might be some places where you can do it, but maybe you have to, whatever, travel thousands of miles before you find a place like this.

42:58The same thing with education. Of course, the ultimate goal should be there should be no state involvement in education whatsoever. But even those who agree there should be some involvement of the state in education, of the conservatives, we could agree with them. That should be, of course, done on the smallest possible level. Not even in these big school districts as they exist right now, but even splitting up the existing school districts into even smaller units. and certainly it should not be a state matter and even less so should it be a matter of the federal government.

43:47As far as your point is concerned, doesn't my thing alienate some of the young? of the Young. You might be right, but the intention of that chapter had been to force some of these people to either grow up or to disband. The libertarian movement has been have been greatly harmed by the fact that the public perception of them is these are people who are only interested in engaging in weird lifestyles, who want to smoke pot all day long, want to engage in whatever pedophilia, necrophilia, whatever perversion that you can imagine.

44:48And it is not difficult to explain that the libertarian party, of course, or the libertarian movement, more generally speaking, has attracted these types of crackpots. Because the libertarian's view was always, yes, of course, these sorts of things should not be punished by physical punishment as long as they do not any harm. But what they have confused is that from that it does not follow, that they should not be punished by other means than physical punishment. That is, that we should exclude these people, that we should refuse to have any dealings with them who propagate these sorts of things.

45:35And again, if I ask my own students what they think about the libertarians, their general view is that these are just weird types, full of losers and so forth. and this chapter was written in order to distance a movement that I think has to be a bourgeois movement in order to be successful. If the libertarians do not If they do not present themselves as a group of people who are upstanding bourgeois types who are successful in their profession, care about their neighbors, are concerned about their own behavior and so forth, then we will never amount to anything.

46:38The state that I live in allows municipalities to annex surrounding areas without even a majority vote of the people that will be annexed, involuntary annexation, and in response to that, a lot of people in the areas that are targeted by the nation have, instead of fighting the whole concept of involuntary annexation, they have just decided to look out by forming a municipality of their own, the incorporation, which, in my view, incorporation is involuntary annexation of people who don't want to incorporate.

47:30So it seems like in response to a possible threat of annexation, they're taking on an actual real harm of incorporation. And they all start out by saying, oh, this is just going to be a paper incorporation. This won't be a real town to protect us from being involuntarily annexed. And of course, two years later you have a fire department, parks, a municipal swimming pool, an office complex and all that. And there is becoming a movement to actually fight on the state level, the whole concept of in-law and free annexation.

48:17I've always struggled with that. Do you throw in with the people who want to incorporate on the idea that it's true, it may keep you from being annexed? Or do you try to point out that both are unacceptable? And that's what I've chosen to do, but it's a difficult position.

48:47I think the greater danger is this involuntary annexation. But you see, that's only a potential danger, the way I see it, the incorporation, you know, it's like the people who are interested in incorporating, you know, kind of whip up this frenzy of we're going to be annexed, we're going to be annexed, you know, you don't know if that's true or not, and you're spending your energy incorporating when you could be finding annexation. so I don't know I mean what is the status that they had before you're probably like a county yeah unincorporated unincorporated county

49:44Is it known hard to avoid a possible one?

50:10Incorporate and secede. and Finance. Again, I can only repeat what I mentioned before. The conditions for these secessionist movements are different from place to place. They exist in Belgium, for For instance, the Flamme's Bloc, there's a party that they try to outlaw, basically, that tries to break away from the larger Belgium.

50:57There it is, the key issue seems to be immigration as far as I can recognize from afar. There has always in the United States existed for instance some sentiments in the states of Washington and Oregon and Montana to align themselves with British Columbia and create an independent unit there. I do not know enough about the local conditions there, but people who come from there told me that this is something that has some sort of history and tradition.

51:44So again, it would depend on certain aggravations coming, so to speak, from the central government, plus a charismatic leader appearing. A man or a woman who is part of the natural aristocracy, those are my terms, who can pull something like this off? There has existed a movement, the Lega Nord, in Italy that tried to do that. Unfortunately, after some initial successes, the leader of that group has become corrupted and has been co-opted into the Italian central government.

52:44So, circumstances are different at different places. You need an act of aggression or an act of aggravation on the part of the central government in order to arouse the masses. You need somebody who then takes this up, popularizes it. And you need these people to understand that creating a larger number of units is not an economic anachronism, is not, so to speak, something that only Neanderthal men would want to have, But that there are good reasons, solid reasons for this.

53:40Just look at the world and look at these small places, how they do as compared with their surrounding larger units. Switzerland is more successful than any of these European countries that are in the European community. Liechtenstein is even more successful than Switzerland. Monaco is more successful than France. As a matter of fact, France actually forces French people working in Monaco to pay French taxes because they know otherwise there would be a mass exodus of French people to Monaco. So they grant the Monaco's tax structure only to non-French people, but not to the French for whom, of course, that would be the nearest place to go.

54:38Hong Kong is an enormously successful place. Singapore is an enormously successful place. So the empirical evidence clearly indicates that this is something that we can do, that can be done, can be successfully done. We have many examples of it. So it is of importance that people grasp. We are not as a, so to speak, only because something bad happens to us as the last resort, We resort to secession separating us, but that is actually something that is a good in itself.

55:25There's actually more closer examples in the United States. You can look at certain Indian reservations and how they're succeeding and they're becoming economically rich, literally. Of course, most of them is because... Casinos, yeah. But you have to look at what they're doing with the money. Why don't we have, whatever, the Mises Institute reservation, something like this, or various other places who just simply insist, look, you grant that to our Native Americans, why Why don't we, we other people, get the same rights as the natives?

56:13Also having our reservation and then just establishing casinos there and whatever, whatever we regard as successful economic ventures. The central government has difficulties, for instance, denying other people the right that that they give to these tribes, because people say, well, why should they get that, and we can't. They've gone out and bought additional land, then declaring it tribal. They say, go away. Yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes you just need to find one Indian who declares himself a tribe, and then lots of other tribesmen just join them.

57:00The idea of declaring ourselves some sort of we are tribe, I have to find a name for it, but I'm sure we will come up with it. Can you speak a little bit louder?

57:50Yes, if these movements then also allow separation from them. I'm pretty sure that if the Basques would separate, they will ruin the country pretty quickly. But if they would allow, let's say, San Sebastian to say, we are not joining in the separation, If we become independent, we either stay with Spain or we become independent, then I would say, let them try it. You see, smaller units also learn more quickly from their own mistakes in these artificial states that were created, for instance, after World War I.

58:40Take Yugoslavia as an example. The complaint of all these various ethnic groups was, whatever goes wrong in Croatia is the fault of the Serbs who run the central government. Whatever goes wrong in Slovenia is the fault of the Serbs who run the central government. In Russia, the same sort of thing. Whenever or whatever the Lithuanians complain, they say, oh, it's because the Russians rule us and that's why the mess exists in Lithuania. Let them have their own place, then they can no longer say it is the Russians that are responsible for it. They have to take responsibility themselves.

59:27The Slovenes who have seceded and the Croats who have seceded from the former Yugoslavia have a far more difficult task at hand now to blame anybody for the mess that they themselves create. And as a matter of fact, we can expect that some of these deceding units will do worse than they would do if they would continue to be dominated by the surrounding majority place. And others would do significantly better. But it is precisely the competition between these small units and the movement of people from unit to unit which speeds up the learning process and makes some people learn maybe for the very first time who were absolutely resistant to ever learn anything because they always had somebody else to blame.

1:00:27In the European Union, those countries join. Do they have an opt to unjoin if they do?

1:00:57I think without the permission of the rest of the public, otherwise, what is at work? There's probably not even a statement like that in whatever articles or treaties that happen. I think some people try to get something like that in. I haven't followed the discussion about it. There are pages in the new constitution, so there must be some room for that. Like a thousand pages. The idea of secession is very inspiring, but of course the southern states tried that and failed. Yeah, I think it might be, the first one should point out that of course there was also a successful act of secession in the United States, the initial one.

1:01:51The second point I think is, from the point of view of the central government, it always appears far more dangerous if large sections secede. Because of this, I prefer this model of the European Middle Ages where you had a multitude of free cities and so forth, which appears far less dangerous from the point of view of the central government and is in a way also more likely to have spillover effects. So that if one place succeeds in it, you can almost predict that at many dispersed other places, similar events will take place, which then make it also very difficult to engage in crackdown operations.

1:02:52If a large, contiguous territory secedes, you can invade this in a way far more easily than if a place there secedes, a place there secedes, then you have to disperse your troops. And the American troops, as you know, they are all in foreign countries, so they don't have anything anymore to crack down with. If Auburn secedes, do they secede from the county or from Alabama or from the U.S. or from everything at one time? Would there be a legal structure in doing that? No, the free city of Auburn. They can adopt whatever legal code they want to adopt.

1:03:39As I explained, in the Middle Ages you had cities that adopted Magdeburg law or Hamburg law or whatever it is. and I would recommend that you just in order to maintain so to speak friendly relationship with the higher levels of government that you would say of course every county building we still recognize the county as owning it every federal building of course the government can still occupy the federal building but you are no longer entitled to collect taxes here and and your laws I just wanted to point out the problem with the Southern Secession was that when they left, they took 80% of the federal revenue with them, so that's why it didn't work.

1:04:46I mean, again, I would think that if these small scales of sessions happen, eventually it will also amount to these amounts, but initially it is just a little bit, so what, we lose Auburn. Big deal. Go to Appalachian counties. Some Appalachian counties might be a good place to start. No revenue law. What is your view of the Free State Project?

1:05:15I'm sympathetic to the idea, but I think a state is far too big of a unit. I also think that New Hampshire is not particularly suitable for something like that. So it would be better off to do like Killington and just vote to secede from the state you're in? You used the word simultaneously as an edge to describe the secession movement that you would support, and I'm wondering what you think about something like the Branch Davidians. I know they're really kooky and weird, but if someone were to secede independently, and it was isolated rather than simultaneous with other secessionist movements, would it be?

1:06:28I think simultaneous would be better obviously, but I think in the Branch Davidian case it was precisely the kookiness of the people who did it that made it possible that people put up with the government doing to these people what they did. Even given their kookiness, you realize that there was quite amount of public resistance against that and that was by any means not a popular type movement on the part of the government and if you would have normal people like you and me.

1:07:15If we would secede, then it might be that the situation might be entirely different than some kooks like they were. I'd just like to add another case to your response to Roger's question about supporting socialist and socialist movements. I kind of work with the idea that Cuba has been attempting for a long time to secede from world government and you know it's had its problems for them and they've really only been isolated for the past 10 years but interestingly there you can talk about support for free enterprise and support for such things as that a lot more freely than you can talk about ever.

1:08:06Are you making any concessions to bow down to the will of the United States, or to other governing bodies? At least that's my view of it, from what I understand. I mean, it seems like what you were saying, that people learn from government states, and now they're not a part of it.

1:08:36Well, of course. They will go back to their old ways. They have far more attractive locations than Las Vegas. And at least according to the movies that I have seen, the Godfathers went there and so forth. I think in The Godfather and things like that, they were essentially governed by the United They might agree to be governed by some sort of mafia organization. You know in Vegas I also hear that frequently in the old days Vegas was a very nice place.

1:09:26That was when the mob controlled the city. This was not a no-government environment because the mob is, of course, a proto-government, but it was a very decentralized government. This mob family controlled this hotel, that mob family controlled that hotel, and so forth. In the meantime, with the feds being in charge there, the old-style flair seems to have disappeared. Unfortunately, I only moved to the place after the mobs were eliminated. We have now, we have the former, our mayor is a major defense attorney for the former mobsters.

1:10:18So given that, who knows what the prospects for Las Vegas are? Are you doing a succession of Mr. Merkel, Dr. Hoffman? Yes, it has, for instance, been proposed in the local newspaper over this Yucca mountain stuff. Because that is the most burning issue, obviously, for people. And I mean, I thought that was quite remarkable that the leading local newspaper, which is somewhat libertarian-oriented, more so than most other papers that I know of, did propose it. And because no decisions have yet been made about these things will be taking place, there are still court battles going on and so forth, It might come to the point where some people will collect signatures for a referendum to do this.

1:11:23And I think if they put it up for a referendum, that would pass. And then I would be curious what will happen, but I do not think that they will send troops in. Just to declare it null and void. Well, even better, you can, once you use the seat, you can then start your own nuclear waste dump and charge lots of money.

1:11:50I was thinking about the Patriot Act and all these cities enacting legislature to, you know, disavow lots of things, different, you know, memos, but who would have thought that that was even going to happen? There's over a hundred cities and counties there. I don't understand if the federal police coming in can't order staff around. Yeah, there's a resistance to the Patriot Act. Because of the airport control that they do and being so inefficient in it, right, or what? Well, they're coming in saying that, you know, Auburn in its city government needs to do certain things to beef up their security or prevent terrorists from taking over the water supply or something.

1:12:42These local localities are resisting, starting to object to it. Isn't that? Yeah, something along those lines. I think it has to be passed a resolution not to pay attention to the federal government. There's over a hundred cities that have done this. If one has succeeded successfully, help me describe, at this point I don't officially pay any federal taxes any longer, do I still use the Federal Reserve counterfeit as money, do I still have a banking system, can I still collect social security? No, of course you would not be able to collect that social security and so forth anymore, I assume, because the central government would cut that off.

1:13:35I assume that they would do that. You would be free to use any money you want, of course. Of course. Maybe you could use euros or whatever, silver dollars, who knows what. You could also continue to use U.S. dollars. But of course, again, I think we would want to go ultimately a step further. We would then, of course, also want to privatize the communities. That is, they are governments after all too. They might be less menacing as governments because they are small, one can easily avoid them or leave them and so forth, but nonetheless, they are also democratically elected people who just pass laws that might invade private property.

1:14:40The ultimate solution would be, of course, to privatize all public property that exists in these communities and the strategy of how to privatize that appears to me to be that, that we will distribute the private property in accordance with the tax payments. These are the tax payments that the members of the community have made and can prove that they have made them. They are obvious. We would not want to, let's say, give the schools to the school teachers or the judicial buildings to the judges.

1:15:35After all, the school teachers were paid out of taxes, they are tax recipients, they are not tax payers. It would add insult to injury if they would get the public property in which they work. Instead the schools should become the property of those people who have actually paid the taxes. They get a saleable share and then it will quickly happen that some people will buy up the necessary shares and run that as a private school or convert it to different purposes.

1:16:21with streets, for instance, most local streets, you would give the immediate adjacent inhabitants a share in the street with freedom to access the street and they can then hire a maintenance company or sell it to somebody who maintains the street. So, again, the details would have to be worked out a little bit. But the ultimate goal is, of course, to eliminate any type of public property.

1:17:17You would have an exit of the taxi. Okay, this is the last question that I take. Do you compare democracy and monarchy or government? I'd like to know how you think direct democracy and aristocratic government compare with democracy and monarchy.

1:17:52controlled by individuals or institutions that command particular respect among the public. You might have people who acquire positions similar to the position of kings. But again, they would be voluntarily acknowledged kings. Again, in a society like the United States, it is less likely because they have no monarchical royal tradition. But in many European places, of course, there exist these families, and many of these families still are well-to-do families, and our families that are respected individuals in large districts.

1:18:52So I consider a natural order to be a society that is basically aristocratic in nature. I think this was by and large also what the American founding fathers thought that America should look like. They consider, what is this statement of Randolph of Roanoke, I hate, I love liberty, I hate equality, I consider myself to be a natural aristocrat. So, yes, I think that is a normal tendency in natural orders that certain people rise to the rank of highly respected people and whether we call them nobles or aristocrats doesn't make any difference.

1:19:45In fact, there are aristocratic families and people who command the respect of nobles and aristocrats. I think it's necessary that societies have people like this. That is, people who live a life that is a model for other people. Not everybody can achieve this, but people somehow recognize this is the goal that one should strive for to attain. And of course, we have nowadays very few people who play this role. Certainly not our political elite.

1:20:33They are not exactly the type of people that you would look up to and say, look, my kid, son, daughter here, try to emulate what these people are doing. They are leading a life like it should be, should be led. They certainly don't. But yes, for the stability of societies, a class of people who just have this ability and who provide services, so to speak, free of charge, is vital. Again, I thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it.