Just Another Drug War Rant
(posted by Kevin Carson)
When I tell people in meatspace conversations that I’m opposed to drug prohibition, I frequently get a look of utter astonishment: “You mean people ought to just be able to take crack, or meth, or whatever, whenever they feel like it?”
Well, the point is they can already do that right now. If you look at countries like the Netherlands, where pot is for all intents and purposes legal, and private possession and use of the hard stuff is virtually decriminalized, the actual rates of drug use are probably at or below those in the United States.
So essentially, we’ve allowed our country to be taken over by gangs and organized crime syndicates fighting to control the black markets in illegal drugs. We’ve created lawless, militarized police forces that view us as an occupied enemy, sadistic bastards who taser people in diabetic comas to death for “resisting arrest,” and murder 92-year-old women in their sleep in botched SWAT team raids. We’ve gutted the due process provisions of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, which are now kept around mainly as examples of good penmanship. We’ve got the highest rate of incarceration in the entire world–greater than Communist China–and a massive prison-industrial complex using slave labor. We are literally at the mercy of beasts of prey in SS chic uniforms. We’ve corrupted our society to the core. And we’ve done it all for nothing.
The corruption of our society includes turning the cops themselves into the biggest criminal gangs of all, under the corrupting influence of all that drug money. Only the cops’ approach to gang warfare involves building a petty empire of planted evidence, jailhouse snitches, entrapment, plea extortion, and civil forfeiture.
The biggest fans of Prohibition were the bootleggers–probably even more than the Baptists, who served as their useful idiots.
Today, most people would probably be amazed at how much of the leading “drug warrior” politicians’ campaign funds consist of laundered money from the drug cartels. As Larry Gambone says,
The point has to be made that whether the figure is $100 billion or $400 billion it is a lot of money and the gangs cannot account for more than a fraction of it. The rest has to be somewhere else and the most likely set of suspects are the people who are already handling billions of dollars such as the offshore money laundries connected to “legitimate” financial institutions or the folks who already have a history of involvement in high-level drug trafficking, namely the CIA….
….The people most vociferous in their support for the so-called War on Drugs are the people, or are associates of the people, who profit from the drug trade at the higher levels.
One thing the illegal drug trade is good for is raising lots and lots of cash. And the biggest organized criminals of them all are probably the shadow warriors of the CIA, using the international drug trade to raise money for criminals and terrorists in the employ of the United States government.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Kevin: Since the 4th Cir has now ruled that Bush may retain “enemy combatants” captured on U.S. indefinitely — including U.S. citizens — it only awaits the DEA and DoJ to determine that these include “combatants” in the war on drugs. After all, when one sells or purchases illegal drugs, one is, as we’ve long been told, funding terrorism.
July 19th, 2008 at 1:07 am
There’s certainly a scary history of such cross-pollination, Mona. A lot of the arguments federal law enforcement used for the expanded powers under Clinton’s counter-terror legislation and USA PATRIOT, were along the lines of: “We’re already able to do it against drug dealers, so why not against terrorists?” And the powers granted by USA PATRIOT are now being used to investigate ordinary crime (much like RICO has been abused for just about any imaginable purpose). The state loves the “war” analogy, as a source of self-aggrandizing power over any aspect of life. And once it’s granted in one aspect, the state will be sure to declare a “moral equivalent of war” and expand use of that power to as many other areas as possible.
July 19th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
“. . . we’ve allowed our country to be taken over by gangs and organized crime syndicates fighting to control the black markets in illegal drugs.”
“. . . the biggest organized criminals of them all are probably the shadow warriors of the CIA.”
Sort of puts a crimp in the whole agorist strategy for revolution, doesn’t it?
July 19th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Soviet Onion:
Nah. We’ll be in trouble if they try to monopolize black-market bread, though.
July 19th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
[...] Chris Acheson: Soviet Onion: Nah. We’ll be in trouble if they try to monopolize black-market bread, though…. [...]
July 19th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Chris,
True, but but they’ll still try to extort the bread bakers at some point
It seems like I’m starting to notice more and more contradictions in counter-economic strategy. I’m still waiting for Konkin’s Counter-Economics book to get published. Hopefully that will try to tackle some of these issues.
The case of bootleggers supporting prohibition indicates that a lot of counter-entrepreneurs might actually enjoy the prevailing system just because it allows them to reap higher profits. Of course, you could argue that regardless of what they want, their actions still have a corrosive effect in the long run; the classic formulation of private pursuits yielding public benefit. I suppose it’s appropriate that the same justification for economic competition also applies to counter-economics, but . . . I don’t know, it just feels kind of wrong.
I also wonder how we’re ever going to displace protection rackets with real security provisions, or why that doesn’t happen spontaneously in a least some cases (maybe it does and we just don’t know about them?). Or how such an arrangement would keep to from going rogue itself before competition rose and things achieved a stable state. The Icelandic godi seem to be the only well-known and long-lasting example, but that didn’t grow and stabilize spontaneously: everybody sat down at a table in 930 AD and decided that’s the way was going to be. It was stable from the get-go, and reinforced by a shared cultural perception.
Yes, you and I both agree that protection wouldn’t rely predominantly on professional firms, but I do wonder how you go about “inserting” it into communities who currently need it.
I live in Chicago, and I’m sure the events of the few months have been national news by now. Local response by residents is to march around with signs saying “Stop the Violence” like they’ve been doing for the past 30 years, hoping to encourage gang members to turn their weapons over to the police.
Those would be the same police who’s response to crime is to try and beat the gang members at their own game, who are currently training to use M4 assault rifles on regular patrols, and who will soon receive reinforcements (including choppers) from the state police. And all the while, police enablers like “community leader” Michael Flager assure us that this is the correct course to take, and that lifting our long-standing handgun ban would just help arm the gangs and be a complete disaster (because keeping people disarmed has worked so well).
July 20th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Bread differs from drugs in that you can always fall back on white-market bread. This serves as an effective cap on the price of black-market bread. It’s never going to be profitable enough to bother controlling the market.
The gangs may try to extort the bakers, like they sometimes do to white-market businesses. However, even without the benefit of any kind of protection agency, an underground bread ring is going to have natural defenses against this. It’s decentralized, and relatively secretive. If the health department doesn’t know that you’re making illegal bread, there’s a good chance that the local gang won’t know either. Instead of being able to go after a single bakery-owner, the gang would have to target each baker individually. For the bakers, this is a hobby, so they’re unlikely to be rolling in the dough (heh). If any of the bakers are threatened, they always have the option of just shutting down their operations and falling back on the police. For the gang, this racket would be about as effective as extorting random part-time wage slaves.
The thing that I was getting at with my comment is that drug trafficking is a bad paradigm for counter-economics. The bread clubs, on the other hand, are a great example of what we’re going for.
(For those that don’t know what I’m talking about: http://freemania1.com/?p=32 )
As for why free-market protection agencies (professional or otherwise) haven’t already risen up and smashed the state, there’s still a great deal of inertia to be overcome. The counter-economy just isn’t developed enough in most places to make such enterprises viable. Until it is, our security measures are going to have to be more passive and low-key
July 20th, 2008 at 1:55 am
Soviet Onion,
I think an agorist would try to conduct peaceful black market exchange with voluntary buyers, using trust-based networks, encryption, etc., to circumvent the extortion rackets run by all the organized criminals (including the ones at Langley and in the LAPD). If the state is just another organized crime gang to agorists, then the equation also works the other way round.
July 20th, 2008 at 7:43 am
That which is prohibited becomes an enticement to some people. When an authority figure says, “you must not”, a young person says,”I wonder why”? And when the reason for the prohibition is found to be a fraud ,the forbidden becomes acceptable. Therefore PROHIBITION PROMOTES DRUG USE AND IS THE GATEWAY TO TYRANNY.
July 20th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Chris,
“Bread differs from drugs in that you can always fall back on white-market bread. This serves as an effective cap on the price of black-market bread. It’s never going to be profitable enough to bother controlling the market.”
It’s also makes it less likely that the profit is worth the risk of getting caught, thus eliminating much of the incentive to do it in the first place. High risk requires high reward, or there’s no point in taking it.
Everything will reach equilibrium in the end, once state restrictions are gone, but for now the high margins and price differentials are supposed to act as a guide.
“As for why free-market protection agencies (professional or otherwise) haven’t already risen up and smashed the state . . .”
No, I mean why don’t existing underground economies already fit that paradigm in at least some cases? Popular conception is that violent monopolists predominate, except in environments where the actors aren’t large and integrated (people growing pot in their homes, or local meth producers before the crackdown on pseudoephedrine sales).
I do agree that things like the bread clubs or anything service-for-cash make a better paradigm for counter-economics, not only because they have less red-market taint, but because they’re much more accessible and less scary for the average person.
July 20th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
“It’s also makes it less likely that the profit is worth the risk of getting caught, thus eliminating much of the incentive to do it in the first place. High risk requires high reward, or there’s no point in taking it.”
The risk is far lower, though, in terms of both potential punishment and chance of being caught in the first place. It’s not like massive law enforcement resources are being dumped into a “war on illegal bread”. You’re not looking at a mandatory prison sentence either, just some fines at worst. The authorities are also more likely to just look the other way than if you were running a meth lab or something.
“No, I mean why don’t existing underground economies already fit that paradigm in at least some cases? Popular conception is that violent monopolists predominate, except in environments where the actors aren’t large and integrated (people growing pot in their homes, or local meth producers before the crackdown on pseudoephedrine sales).”
For the really high-risk stuff, the red-marketeers have a comparative advantage. They’re already involved in racketeering, theft, and murder, so the added risk of getting into drug trafficking is a drop in the bucket for them. Because of this, the black market won’t really displace the red market until it grows past a certain point (at the expense of the white market).
July 21st, 2008 at 12:21 am
Chris,
That sounds about right. I wasn’t really trying to say that counter-economic strategy is fatally flawed. I just saw some minor inconsistencies that I don’t think have been adequately addressed before. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
July 21st, 2008 at 8:23 am
[...] Carson goes to town on the War on [...]
July 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. I did some thinking about this issue recently, as someone else presented me the same question.
July 21st, 2008 at 11:04 am
One other thing. How big do you think things would actually have to get before red-market crews could be displaced/reformed/fizzle out?
By the beginning of the 80’s, the Soviet black market commanded close to two-thirds of the GDP and was comprised of fairly mundane activity, like food, blue jeans, electronic, cigarettes and services industries. Yet as far as we know there was no higher-order development of security or dispute resolution mechanisms, and the Russian Mafiya are notorious to this day.
Other agorists have expressed to me the opinion that you need a lot of libertarian advocacy and education to give the underground economy that extra push to get that development started. I think that’s also true for keeping people involved over the long term, as participation tends to wax and wane with public trust in the authorities. If you work on delegitimizing the very idea of authorities, that’s less of a problem.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I think the level of anarchistic consciousness is a very important factor. As far as I understand, the Soviet opposition was primarily reformist and nationalist in nature. If anything, I would expect them to set up shadow governments in preparation to take over existing government organizations, rather than creating dispute resolution/protection agencies. Do you know if anything like this happened?
I would expect the displacement of red-market drug dealers to begin soon after our theorized protection agencies start cropping up. Before then, independent dealers can’t really get a toehold in gang-controlled areas, so it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. In order to bootstrap the protection agencies, there needs to be a sufficient local density of counter-economic business to support them.
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Chris,
Sorry for the belated reply. As far as I know, the various nationalist and democratic forces were working through the official channels of their various governments. Once Gorbachev allowed the constituent republics of the USSR to hold their first competitive elections, reformers and nationalist candidates won out and there was nothing Moscow could do to stop them from riding popular discontent for self-aggrandizement. That was even true within Russia itself, as Boris Yeltsin (then president of the Russian Republic) was willing to enable them for the benefit of his own plans.
So yeah, as far as I know there weren’t any shadow governments being set up, just popular discontent being pushed through existing channels, and exploited by existing local powers to the detriment of Moscow.
There was also no connection between the black market and the new governments, except to the the extent that black markets contributed to the breakup and thus indirectly to their ascension. There was always graft and corruption in the USSR, but that was true at level of government, all the way down to the cops being paid to ignore the back-alley food and clothing markets.
Although the numbers have shrunk a bit, experience, coupled with continuing lack of faith in the authorities insures that the former Soviet republics still have some of the largest counter-economies in the world. Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are still above 50% of GDP.
Interestingly enough, this is even true of some of the western European states. Spain, Italy, Belgium and Greece are all between 25-30%. I have an agorist from Italy in my group right now and he confirms the Italian case. According to him, you’d be hard pressed to find somebody who wasn’t evading some tax or regulation, or didn’t keep some income off the books.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:03 pm
“have an agorist from Italy in my group right now and he confirms the Italian case. According to him, you’d be hard pressed to find somebody who wasn’t evading some tax or regulation, or didn’t keep some income off the books.”
Is he aware of anyone engaging in any kind of insurance-like arrangements for their counter-economic activities? I’d expect these to precede the development of protection agencies.
July 23rd, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Chris,
“Is he aware of anyone engaging in any kind of insurance-like arrangements for their counter-economic activities? I’d expect these to precede the development of protection agencies.”
Not that I know of, but I’ll ask him. And I definitely agree with you about insurance pools preceding and acting as a fund-source for security later on.
I might consider reposting our exchange so far to the A3 listserve, if that’s alright with you. It seems like it would make a good springboard for a free-for-all discussion on agorist strategy and security. My friend also hangs out there and could talk about his experience directly. His name’s Nicollo Adami, by the way. You can see his blog archives here (http://catholicmarketanarchy.blogspot.com/).
July 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Sounds good to me.
July 25th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I’ve made a post on the A3 listserve, and maybe I’ll forward to the LeftLibertarian2 list depending on how much debate it draws.
It comes to mind that displacing them might take a conscious effort by the residents as a whole, on the model of the Black Panthers or the Young Lords, at least as an initial measure to clear the way. With that there’s always the risk that they’ll turn around and create a new protection racket, start criminalizing vices etc. If we assume the people in question have a high level of libertarian consciousness and are convinced that anarchy is desirable, that should minimize the chances of them doing so. As long as they don’t suppress competing alternatives before they arise to check it, that’s the most important part.
This isn’t the orthodox agorist position, but it seems the most likely one for making that initial push against extortionists. Even after that I think having a militia body in the background would help just by further bumping up the costs of aggression, and decreasing the chance that any one firm will go rogue.
Consider this a concession to minarchism if you want; there may need to be some level of “background force” that precedes the development of higher-order institutions, and keep the more market-y elements competitive. That way you get the best of both worlds: stability and the optimal efficiency that competition brings.
The two approaches aren’t necessarily opposed to each other, either. Hans Hoppe (yeah, I know) once suggested that insurance agencies would offer lower premiums for owning a gun and completing a safety class, since it’s cheaper to prevent claims rather than swoop in after the fact like police currently do. You could imagine that these same people would naturally tend to form neighborhood watches and ad-hoc defense groups running parallel to insurance agencies but reinforced by them at the same time. This would actually constitute the bulk of the force power in that society, and it would be widely diffused.
* * *
On another note, it occurs that the very presence of a protection racket in some areas signifies some demand on the part of the victims for real protection. That presents an incentive to the first entrepreneurs that step in to fill the role.
Right now, that’s hard to do because the cultural and institutional bases are underdeveloped. But imagine what happens once an agorist counter-economy fully develops in one area, complete with underground capital markets for funding. This would provide a springboard for entrepreneurs to organize and come in from outside the gang territory, to sort of capitalize on the new market.
At the same time, knowing that such a thing has already been done elsewhere breaks the “cultural entry barrier” that keeps people from trying it. It doesn’t seem so crazy anymore.
Once the initial racket is displaced (or reforms now that violence isn’t viable), any attempt on the part of the new crew(s) to go rogue would recreate the incentive. And with the increased ease of mobilization, the incentive structure tips away from monopoly. Extortion is no longer viable, so it stops.
Problems and contradictions:
1. The financiers might back a revolution for the purposes of colonizing the area by creating a friendly government to grant them monopoly rights over resources, real estate etc. on the model of modern day imperialism.
Hopefully it’s true that imperialism just isn’t cost effective unless you have a mechanism to socialize the costs, that war isn’t profitable if you have to pay for it out of your own pocket.
Also, hopefully the amount of territory you could liberate at a time would be too small to really monopolize anything.
And with a lack of minimum capitalization requirements for banks, it’d be easier to create a defensive counter, since the cost of pure defense is likely a lot lower than the cost of occupation.
2. What if extortion is always the more profitable alternative? Whereas free competition between security firms would tend to reduce prices to cost, extortion charges according to the victim’s marginal utility. And since all firms would know this, logic dictates that they’d rather settle into little territorial monopolies for the purpose of getting more milk per cow, just like Robert Nozick predicted, and just like gangs currently do. This would only become inviable in the face of a massively larger background force insuring that extortion wasn’t cost effective, like the relation between police and security guards right now.
This isn’t necessarily an argument against market anarchy, or even market-based security in all cases. You’d just need a militia body in the background, and I think that’s likely to be the most common form of defensive power in any case, given the cost effectiveness of private gun ownership and the economic incentive created by insurance.
This is really a more general criticism of market anarchism’s viability, so I’m sure someone else has addressed it by now.