><http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1222>
>
>Notwithstanding considerable talk to the contrary, the natural relationship among people is one of peaceful cooperation, based on the recognition of the higher physical productivity of the division of labor. This is not to say that there will be no crime and aggression. Mankind being what it is, murderers, robbers, thieves, thugs, and con artists will always exist.
A classic example of the work of an economist. Demonstrating the refusal of this profession to look beneath the surface.
Actually, the "natural relationship" among people is patently nothing of the kind. The natural is either co-operative or competitive, or both, depending on the context and/or circumstances.
The statement "Mankind being what it is, murderers, robbers, thieves, thugs, and con artists will always exist." is a ridiculous obfuscation. It is patently and logically absurd, because once again it ignores the context. Obviously there will be no thieves if there is nothing to steal, so in a society of humans with no property, theft would be not only impossible, but inconceivable.
>
>However, their anti-social behavior is typically suppressed by means of armed self-defense and mutual assistance and insurance arrangements.
Which is, to all extents and purposes, what a state does. The author condemns the state merely on the basis that the modern state tends to monopolise violence. In more traditional societies, the state, or the clan or the tribe, or whatever it might have been called, would tend to exercise violence only against other states. Individuals reserved the right to settle personal conflicts between themselves through violence, right up until recently. However this is hardly an attractive or civilised phenomenon. It is certainly a highly inefficient and destructive method of settling economic disputes.
The monopoly of violence by the state, along with the adoption of the principle of the rule of law, is a significant improvement on the practice of settling internal disputes on the principle of 'might is right'.
So violent robbery is not "natural". It can happen only when some people have things which other people want. And the other people see it as in their interests to stop the others from taking it from them. This in turn, and this is a crucial economic concept, must be associated with scarcity. No-one steals air from other people, because air is in abundance, there is no need to steal someone else's air. The same with anything.
Before theft can even be conceivable, there must be a scarcity of the thing someone might steal, otherwise to steal it is merely a symptom of insanity. No-one would want to steal something that was in abundance and even if they did, no-one would take any notice. It is of course impossible to steal something that no-one thinks of as theirs.
Primitive societies had no theft, because they had nothing to steal. For the most part everyone had very little and in any case they would traditionally share what they had, they would share their poverty that is. Class society arises as wealth increases, so that there is enough for a few to enjoy a better standard of living, but the material circumstances do not exist to sustain everyone that way. Socialism is the theoretical form of organisation for a society in which material circumstances permit everyone to have everything they need. In such a society of course there would be no need to steal and in fact it would be almost impossible to steal, since nearly everything would be available freely.
There would be no need to suppress theft by "armed self-defense", this is not a description of "anarchism" (socialism), it is rather a defense of and rationalisation of the existing social order.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas