Radical, Man
Benjamin H. Friedman puts piracy in perspective. It’s important to keep in mind that Friedman is a pretty radical libertarian, so his saying that piracy amounts to “a local tax on shipping†is not praise, because “tax†is not one of his praise-words. The larger point is that someone is going to bear the security costs of sailing along the Somali coast, and someone is going to pocket the benefits of doing so. Right now, the shippers themselves are bearing the bulk of the costs (in ransom) and accruing the bulk of the benefits. The pirates get a sliver of the benefits too. The more ambitious proposals to use the US or other navies to try to eliminate piracy off Somalia are proposals to offload the security costs of sailing along the Somali coast to the taxpayers of whoever provides the navy, and allow shippers to hold onto that last sliver of benefit the pirates currently take.
But it’s worse than that. Military operations may well end up costing more than the current losses to shipping – you’re not just transferring existing costs to some set of taxpayers, you’re increasing the total costs the system must bear. It’s a negative-sum game. The costs ramify the more ambitious the plan gets: many of them involve raids or land invasions of Somalia, up to full-scale multi-year occupations – humanitarian, of course! In that case, Somalis pay probably large costs in death, dismemberment and dislocation, while taxpayers in countries launching the operations pay yet more money than marginally greater anti-piracy patrols would cost.
The penultimate argument in favor of major, violent anti-piracy initiatives comes from justice, that what the pirates are doing is wrong and letting them get away with it is unjust. This argument has the merit of being true. But we are not lacking in opportunities to fight injustice in this world. We should be suspicious when told that the highest priorities are the ones that involve deploying first-world militaries against the world’s poorest regions.
The last argument is the signaling case, that failing to crush Somali piracy will “embolden†others around the globe to hoist the black flag and start slitting throats. There’s more than nothing to this argument. But piracy is endemic to seas with complex coasts, low social cohesion and poor local naval forces already, such as Southeast Asia and the western coast of South America. The Heritage Foundation offered surprisingly restrained policy advice on mitigating Southeast-Asian piracy in 2000, and John McPhee included an encounter with South-American pirates in Looking for a Ship. There is already piracy pretty much anywhere local conditions support it.
It’s hard not to see the current predominance of public concern about piracy off the coast of Somalia as a sign of how much the United States is still in the grip of imperial fever. People have done bad things somewhere in the world. Surely the United States needs to attack somebody. Because, in fact, there is at least a hazy outline of a target that could be attacked, we are especially beguiled. Or at least, our elites are.
Comment by albatross —
April 19, 2009 @ 3:25 pm
I wonder how much of the piracy issue (which all hit the papers at the same time) is either:
a. Being pushed by some faction of DOD/defense contractors/whatever wanting a new mission.
b. Being pushed by the shippers and their insurance companies, looking for the US navy to give them some free protection.
Or is there some other group that might be pushing this story/issue? I’m assuming this isn’t the result of careful journalism, since it seems like this is a long-ongoing problem that has rather quickly risen to the burning issue of the day. (But it’s possible this is just the randomness of story-chasing journalists.)
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 19, 2009 @ 4:28 pm
A bit beyond proposals; various navies are already hunting pirates in that area.
I don’t see the greater-total-cost argument as particularly persuasive by itself. Do we really suppose that the cost of most successful police investigations is – or must be – below the cost of the investigated crime? (Of course, I’m speaking actual crimes with actual victims, not the WoD, etc.)
Outside of a strictly anarcho-capitalist context, casting protection from assault, robbery, and possible murder as rent-seeking behavior seems to fall flat. Unless you’re arguing against a government in the first place, isn’t that what they’re for?
The real issue is scope. Do the governments of the US, France, Germany, etc. have the right/responsibility to patrol waters thousands of miles away from them – or any part of the ocean at all?
I actually don’t know what libertarian legalists have said about international laws of the sea. I have seen some very isolationist arguments that the only purposes of a navy should be protecting shores and fighting pirates.
Nor are we lacking in examples of the current and possible future misuse of military force. Small forces from a few countries hunting criminals in the middle of the ocean seems about as safe as you can make the exercise of military power, especially when they’re treating the targets as criminals to be turned over to legal authorities, not un-persons to be merrily abused.
I don’t know. “Millions for defense, not a penny for tribute”?
Jim, I’m just not seeing a lot of serious buzz for making a War on Somali Pirates the biggest priority of the Obama administration, moving huge fleets into the West Indian Ocean, etc.
Comment by Benjamin Friedman —
April 19, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
Thanks for the link and discussion.
I would like to point out that I am not a radical libertarian. Far from it. My point about piracy as being similar to taxation comes partly from Charles Tilly, whose work my colleague Justin Logan discussed here:
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/15/pirates-as-proto-governments-you-bet/
What I meant to say is that one can think of pirates in a theoretical sense as being like states in their earliest form. I certainly believe that states that hold elections are more legitimate than pirates and that there are other important distinctions, such as the fact that a state provides services.
Also in the post I wrote I was careful to say that I wasn’t sure if leaving the shippers to deal with pirates was the right policy. I would like to see someone write a paper about the costs and benefits. My off the cuff the view is that we should use the Navy for this purpose, in part because of tradition, and because there are probably transactions costs that prevent shippers from dealing with the problem efficiently. But the bottom line is that I don’t know. I was asking the question, not answering it.
Comment by John Emerson —
April 19, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
Frederic C. Lane’s “Venice and History” discusses “protection rent” in a semi-theoretical way. Niels Steensgaard’s “Violence and the Rise of Capitalism” and “The Asian Trade Revolution” talks about the different ways the early European empires dealt with protection.
Long-distance traders and pirates were initially often the same people, with traders plundering their competitors.
The Mongols started off as land pirates or bandits and as they grew more successful, starting taxing trade, making cross-Eurasian trade possible for the first time.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 19, 2009 @ 6:44 pm
I’m more or less with Eric here. If a navy is going to be used to fight anybody pirates seem to be one of the least objectionable targets. As long as we’re talking about patrolling shipping lanes in open waters rather than raiding coastal hideouts, this is the sort of police action that involves going after actual bad guys in the open rather than trying to fight an insurgency hiding amongst a civilian population. Plus, keeping shipping lanes open for trade actually is a good thing for people around the world. That cost could, of course, be born by consumers if shipping companies had to pay for their own security, but having Blackwater Blue Water Edition operating out there comes with its own potential drawbacks.
Of course, having defended the ideal platonic intervention, I have to caution that the non-ideal actual intervention probably would morph into raids on coastal enclaves.
On the third hand (I’m like a mutant Cathy Young here!), the real, actual Navy is already out there roaming seas around the world and hanging out in bases in all sorts of countries. Ideally, of course, we’d all prefer if the sailors just stayed in port to enjoy some booze and hookers (and the sailors would be the first to argue in favor of that scenario!) but in practice they’re going to be sent to places to Do Something. If I have to choose between sending them to rattle sabers in the vicinity of Taiwan or the Persian Gulf or whatever, vs. sending them to deter pirates from disrupting shipping, well, Jack Sparrow is just begging for an ass-kicking.
Comment by almostinfamous —
April 19, 2009 @ 11:37 pm
another person putting piracy into perspective : johann hari
(found on econospeak)
Comment by Kolohe —
April 20, 2009 @ 1:03 am
Johann Hari’s is the worst article rattling around the blogowebs these days wrt to the piracy situation. He’s a person who’s watched this one too many times.
Among other things, the ‘nuclear waste’ part is, at best, thinly sourced, has more likely explanations, and is, in any case a complete post hoc rationalization. Real Coast Guards don’t do anything like what those folks are doing.
Comment by Kevin Carson —
April 20, 2009 @ 1:56 am
If the Navy is going to protect shipping and keep the maritame trade routes open, the cost shouldn’t be borne by taxpayers. It should be funded entirely by assessing fees to the shipping being protected.
No less a figure than Adam Smith said as much: it was only equitable, he wrote for the cost of keeping the sea lanes open to be funded by a tax on maritime trade.
“Free trade” means being free to trade, while assuming all the costs and risks on your own nickel. It doesn’t mean the government bears the transaction costs of making a trade-friendly world.
Comment by chris y —
April 20, 2009 @ 3:22 am
The Dutch navy captured some pirates and released a ship the other day, and then had to let the pirates go because
1. the pirates were not Dutch
2. they were not on Dutch territory
3. the ship they had captured was not Dutch.
Presumably, mutatis mutandis the US Navy would have to do likewise for the same reasons, which seems to me like a good argument to restrict ones commitment to this game.
(”Do not fight with your land army on the Horn of Africa”)
Comment by The Angry Optimist —
April 20, 2009 @ 5:20 am
Consumers in the United States already pay for the greatest Navy in the world. It doesn’t follow that there should be yet another tax that will ultimately be borne by those consumers.
Comment by paul —
April 20, 2009 @ 9:32 am
We could just allow guns on ships and let the shipping lines take care of their own business. And stop stealing all the Pirates fish. Because we arrrrrr!
Comment by Thoreau —
April 20, 2009 @ 10:53 am
Kevin,
In principle I’m with you. In practice, I suspect that Blackwater Blue Water Edition would cause at least as many problems as the US Navy.
Comment by Nate —
April 20, 2009 @ 1:00 pm
I hadn’t heard of modern piracy in South America before. Makes me wonder if it might be coming back to the Caribbean, considering the actual or potential instability of the countries around it.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 20, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
There’s been low-level piracy in parts of the Caribbean for some time.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 20, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
AARRGGHH!!!
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 20, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
Nonono. “ARRRRRRRR!!!” No “gh”.
Comment by b-psycho —
April 20, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
Angry Optimist:
I strongly doubt that Kevin thinks paying for that “greatest navy in the world” was worth it…
Comment by Gene Callahan —
April 20, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
Well, Friedman puts it in perspective, but it’s just not a very pleasant perspective.
Comment by Gene Callahan —
April 20, 2009 @ 10:26 pm
“If the Navy is going to protect shipping and keep the maritame trade routes open, the cost shouldn’t be borne by taxpayers. It should be funded entirely by assessing fees to the shipping being protected.”
Kevin, the legal incidence of a tax has little to do with its economic incidence.
Comment by John Emerson —
April 21, 2009 @ 9:25 am
18: The international world has always been an unsafe neighborhood, one way or another. Whatever international order there is has always been incomplete and imposed by violence. The pirates found and empty space in the system and are laying claim to it by setting up a tollbooth. Friedman is right.
What your link was doing was comparing the conditions in an orderly state to the conditions in the disorderly interface between states.
Comment by dhex —
April 21, 2009 @ 1:09 pm
mr. callahan, i think you’re making a leap here that’s not supported in the original piece at all. which may have been your intention, but i don’t think he’s rubber stamping the issue as a “well, isn’t this just groovy” proposition so much as a “they’re sort of like a government, and acting something like a government in this capacity in terms of extracting tribute.”
Comment by fyodor —
April 21, 2009 @ 3:19 pm
I too concur on the difficulties of applying cost-benefit analyses to police action, where its jurisdiction. But still you wonder if there can get to be a time and place for that. I felt funny to read in the papers that the Denver police had announced to gas stations that they weren’t going after pay and run gas pumpers anymore, but the whole issue begs fundamental questions about who’s responsible for what level and types of security.
Back to the particulars, I believe I read somewhere, perhaps in Jesse Walker’s piece at Reason, that international treaties play a role in preventing the shipping industry from being able to defend itself. Naturally, one wonders if lifting such restrictions should at least be considered as a first step towards at least *allowing* the shipping industry to provide its own security.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
April 21, 2009 @ 3:36 pm
From most of what I’ve read, a lot has to do with many ports not allowing armed merchant vessels to dock. I presume that doesn’t require treaty agreements.
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
April 22, 2009 @ 3:54 pm
This is the best commentary I have yet read on the piracy issue. Thanks!
So logically the preferred resolution would be to regularize the payments to the pirates. After all, secure shipping lanes off the horn of Africa are a scarce resource that Somalis happen to be in possession of; given their very high monetary value to shippers, and the very high value of money to Somalis (because they’re so poor) there ought to be a very large space of mutually beneficial deals to be cut.
Comment by lemuel pitkin —
April 22, 2009 @ 3:59 pm
If the Navy is going to protect shipping and keep the maritime trade routes open, the cost shouldn’t be borne by taxpayers. It should be funded entirely by assessing fees to the shipping being protected.
But of course, it’s far from clear why the possession of boats and guns gives the US navy a right to exact a tax on shipping, but the Somalis’ possession of guns and boats does not.
Again, once you decide that the solution to the problem is for shippers to pay a tax for safe passage near East Africa, it’s hard to see why it wouldn’t be simpler, fairer and much cheaper to pay the tax to the Somalis.
Comment by Thoreau —
April 22, 2009 @ 11:39 pm
But of course, it’s far from clear why the possession of boats and guns gives the US navy a right to exact a tax on shipping, but the Somalis’ possession of guns and boats does not.
The Somali pirates don’t answer to a bunch of mostly white guys who wear suits and work in buildings with columns in front.