Comments on: Rum, Sodomy and the Nash redux

By: fourcultures

fourcultures — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:38:54 +0000

Fourcultures wrote a critique of Leeson's pirate economics book back in December. "In summary, the Individualist trading syndicates, the Hierarchist maritime empires and the Egalitarian (or sometimes Fatalist) pirates all had different approaches to social organisation, which biassed their economic rationality in one of four directions..." See: Pirates: Just Acting Rationally?

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:16:38 +0000

koan0215 04.22.09 at 7:32 pm

“I’m curious as to what authority can auction the ocean. Assuming that you did want to buy bits of the sea around Somalia, then whom would you pay?”

Zamfir 04.23.09 at 7:10 am

“Luckily, Leeson has a good Coasian answer, Jeltsin-style : It’s not so important where the proceeds go. The important thing is that the un-owned becomes owned.”

Gee, I guess the poor oppressed multinational megacorps will have to reluctantly step up to the plate, and ‘buy’ the oceans (for the price of some bribes). Poor them :(

By: ajay

ajay — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:02:19 +0000

Fishing rights and drilling rights are obvious, but slightly less obvious are things like the right to affect the ability for the oceans to replenish atmospheric moisture through evaporation. It’s a process integral to the survival of all life on Earth, so simply allowing the owners of shipping rights to do as they please with it is suicidally stupid.

How, exactly, could you affect the ability of the oceans to evaporate?

By: David Gerard

David Gerard — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 09:32:05 +0000

I was joking when I wrote this:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/UnNews:US_sends_Libertarianism_to_cleanse_Somali_government

By: Zamfir

Zamfir — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:10:52 +0000

koan0215 says: I’m curious as to what authority can auction the ocean. Assuming that you did want to buy bits of the sea around Somalia, then whom would you pay?

Luckily, Leeson has a good Coasian answer, Jeltsin-style : It’s not so important where the proceeds go. The important thing is that the un-owned becomes owned.

By: Matt Kuzma

Matt Kuzma — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:30:53 +0000

I think privatizing the seas is a fine idea, but I only think that because I also think that if you properly broke up the value of various assets associated with the oceans, the grand total of their value would rival the accumulated wealth of all of civilization. I imagine Leeson is only thinking in terms of shipping rights and drawing territorial borders on the surface, but any serious attempt would also have to include all other rights to assets associated with the ocean. Fishing rights and drilling rights are obvious, but slightly less obvious are things like the right to affect the ability for the oceans to replenish atmospheric moisture through evaporation. It’s a process integral to the survival of all life on Earth, so simply allowing the owners of shipping rights to do as they please with it is suicidally stupid. And of course there are dozens of equally invaluable services the oceans provide that could not be reasonably ignored and by default bundled with shipping rights. If all those things are properly divvied up and accounted for, I’m sure we’d find that nobody could afford them.

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:37:19 +0000

Kieran’s (originally) rather than mine.

By: jholbo

jholbo — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:20:29 +0000

Great post title!

By: P O'Neill

P O'Neill — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:49:28 +0000

d^2 may have proved that British colonialism left better institutions than its Italian counterpart.

By: omega Centauri

omega Centauri — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:27:11 +0000

Stuart:
You may well be right, that Somalia was on a track to perhaps succeed in forming a more or less conventional government, until the US decided to use the Ethiopians to smash it. But now it seems the less benign sorts of outcome have become the most probable. We never seem to learn the lessons on unintended consequences, do we. And the ironic result is likely to be that our spite over the protection of a handfull of people on our badguys list, is likely to lead to a whole country run by people who would qualify for that same list.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:31:34 +0000

Somalia is most likely to follow the latter example.

I thought there was a good chance of what seemed a fairly reasonable (compared to the likely alternatives anyway) but religiously based government a couple of years ago in Somalia, but US pressure and military support for several warlords helped break it up?

By: omega Centauri

omega Centauri — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:05:57 +0000

I have never thought that the state of libertarian chaos would be long lived enough to be considered as a stable state. I think it is better to think of it as starting conditions for an experiment in the formation of government. In most cases IMO, it is one of the warlords vying to become progenitors of the next dynasty who wins out. In some cases, we have seen religiously based movements form a government. The most recent example was the Taliban in Afghanistan. Somalia is most likely to follow the latter example.

Of some interest might be Walid Phares article in the asia times:
Jihadis target the high seas
He seems to think the pirates are being co-opted into the Jihadi movement, and are seeking to lure in western intervention.

By: koan0215

koan0215 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:32:36 +0000

I’m curious as to what authority can auction the ocean. Assuming that you did want to buy bits of the sea around Somalia, then whom would you pay?

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:09:25 +0000

I don’t know why, but whenever someone talks about the more extreme forms of libertarianism or anarchism, I am reminded of that scene in Life of Brian where John Cleese’s character complains, “What have the Romans ever done for us?”

By: Alex Tabarrok

Alex Tabarrok — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:00:11 +0000

I posted about Somalia with some links a few years ago. It’s a mess but better than one would have expected.

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/04/somalia_and_the.html

Alex