You Say Anarchy Like it's a Bad Thing

My response (at C4SS) to William Lind's latest at The American Conservative:

The real nut of Lind's objection to anarchy seems to be that "externally there is no one with whom other states can deal." He treats this as a bug. I consider it a feature.

What kind of "dealing" takes place between states? The least onerous form of trade between states -- the baseline -- is a continuous barter, between their political classes, of wealth stolen from their productive classes.

From there, it only gets worse, up to all-out war that makes any conceivable stateless "war of all against all" look like a friendly game of flag football: Massive armies (cajoled or even conscripted from among the productive class, of course -- if you're looking for the political class, consult your directory of "undisclosed locations") arrayed against each other, brandishing terrible weapons that only acolytes of the state could manage the psychosis necessary to imagine, or work up the hubris to invest the massive amounts of unearned wealth required to develop.

Here's the whole enchilada.