The Law of the Somalis, a Nation Successful Without Any Central Government | Hacker News Reader

The Law of the Somalis, a Nation Successful Without Any Central Government

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According to the British Goverment Somalia is not a successful nation:

> The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advise against all travel to Somalia, including Somaliland except for the cities of Hargeisa and Berbera to which the FCO advise against all but essential travel. Any British nationals in areas of Somalia to which the FCO advise against all travel should leave. Any British nationals in Hargeisa or Berbera who are not on essential travel should leave.

> Crime There is a dangerous level of criminal activity by armed militia throughout Somalia. There have been murders, armed robbery and a number of incidents of kidnapping. There are regular outbreaks of inter-clan violence throughout Somalia.

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/somalia

But how much of that is the result of foreign interference in the last few decades, with an attempt to forcibly install a new democratic government and replace existing social institutions, and how much of it is actually traceable to their traditional legal system?

This is an interesting point. I'd like to get some information on this myself. Of course, replacing ANY government or social system with another one will result in social upheaval and difficulties. In the book, van Notten alludes to this, and provides some insight, but it isn't really a clear and comprehensive statement.

I don't think anyone considers Somalia a successful nation. It doesn't even cohere as a nation. Two northern regions -- Puntland and Somaliland -- have declared themselves to be separate, sovereign and autonomous states. A nation state's ability to cohere is the most basic criterion by which it should be judged. Those that fall apart, fail.

Also, from the law of the Somalis:

> If no satisfactory decision comes about, the parties will most likely take matters into their own hands in terms of redressing the wrong by force.

This sounds horrifying, and it indicates that Somalia is not a country that abides by the rule of law, whatever definition you want to give to it.

The article's author strikes me as terribly naive about the nature and function of law in human societies, particularly in the developed world.

Successful by what standards or measures? I don't think the "cohere" argument is true, but do you have some examples I could think about? The Soviet Union didn't cohere, for one example I can think of. Neither did the British Empire, including America.

Is there any other basis for seeking peace ever? I think van Notten means here that this is the reason peace is usually sought, because violence is horrifying to those people as well. In North America we also hold violence as the reason to respect social order.

What are the main points about 'the nature and function of law in human societies, particularly in the developed world' you had in mind?

Coherence is the main measure I'm proposing. It's true that the Soviet Union and the British Empire did not cohere. They no longer exist, and in that sense, they failed. If the Union had not won the Civil War, the US would have been reduced to a rump of itself as a nation-state. Nations and empires that don't want to fail should cohere.

Empires and nation states are not the same thing (although they have similarities). All empires be definition attempt to unite disparate peoples and nationalities, usually under the dominance of one or two groups that initiate the expansion. (Russians in the case of the Soviets; English in the case of the British.)

Nation-states often encompass far fewer peoples. The etymology of the word nation is related to the Latin word for birth, and implies that a people share a lineage. This is especially evident among the smaller nations of Europe, where you often have something close to ethnic and linguistic unity. The breakdown of empires into many nation states often involves purges like we saw with the Armenian genocide (Ottoman), and, in a sense, the Balkan Wars (Hapsburg/Tito's Yugoslavia).

One of the twists, when you're considering African nations, is that most of them had their borders drawn by empires, and almost all of them (maybe all) encompass more than one and often many peoples as different from each other in culture and language as the Spanish are from the Finns. Congo, for example, is as large as western Europe, includes many ethnicities at odds with each other, and given it has been the site of Africa's world war since shortly after the Rwandan genocide in the 90s, you could say that it, too, has failed as a nation-state.

This is a helpful warning to travelers, but doesn't necessarily mean the nation isn't doing fine (for Somalis). Also, at different times most nations (or regions of nations) have different events, of course. Many of these warnings can be compared with warnings for other popular travel destinations, such as Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil, etc.

I know that Somalia as an example of a successful country and not an unsuccessful one has become popular among a certain subset of libertarians. (Probably not any large subset, just particularly vocal advocates like the Mises Institute.) But I have always found this odd, because classical libertarians tend to insist on the rights of the individual, and law in Somalia is based on the primacy of clans and extended families where the individual doesn’t count for much.

I suspect they're just sick of people responding to "government is the problem, not the solution!" with "okay, well how is Somalia doing, then?"

People often get sick of being wrong.

Telling yourself that you're right in spite of overwhelming evidence is kind of the worst thing one can do when feeling tired of being wrong, though.

Nah, you can just band together and install a leader who agrees with you, and attempt to change reality to conform to your view.

The problem is when you and countless academics for the last 200 years, all the way up to modern day economists, can see the faults in capitalism (And mostly our government's policies of Austerity Beyond All Reason). But society is too entrenched in it to see any other possible system.

It's like being in a metro system where the roof is falling in and the rails are rusting into nothing, but nobody has figured out how to, or is not willing to, stop things, let everyone out and spend a few days overhauling the cave system so that it works better and isn't killing people. Instead people are utterly content spend the majority of the time painting over the cracks and hoping it won't happen and... oops, yet another recession.

"Housing market crash this time? Ah well. A lot of people in a first world country just died from lack of heating, preventable illness and homelessness... but I've got mine!" seems to be the dominant attitude because "what else can you do?".

The sociopolitical writings of academics have enlightened me beyond use. For what use is enlightenment if one cannot use it, yet I do not seek to lose it, as that is unquestionably bad now.

What alternative do you propose?

And clans... are states.

It always confuses me how right libertarians can have such a huge blind spot for coercive power coming from anything that doesn't look exactly like a nation-state. If a private organization can exercise coercive power over me, is that somehow better than if a nation-state can exercise coercive power over me? I don't see how. If anything it is worse because at least a democratic nation-state has some level of accountability to me in the form of voting. A private organization has no accountability to me at all.

One of the most accepted definitions of State is "the entity that has the monopoly of power in a given region"

If a clan in Somalia, an indian chief, or a drug dealer in a ghetto has the actual power to punish, he's the State - not necessarily Government.

By that logic, as people organize themselves and get larger, there will always be someone with State prerogatives.

It isn't limited to right libertarians, really. Technically you can probably trace this to the general idea of Westphalian sovereignty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty In general, people today have a hard time conceiving of sovereign polities of any kind that are not also nation-states, or depending on your definition of nation, simply "states", as entities that have defined geographical boundaries within which they have a monopoly on violence and legitimacy, and outside of which they have no power of violence and no legitimacy. This is of course an approximation for all the reasons that half-a-dozen people are rushing for the reply link even now, but my point is not that this model is rigidly followed, but that it is simply the default mental model pretty much everybody approaches the world with.

It can help to see how rigidly we all tend to stick with this model to consider something radically different. Imagine a civilization consisting of 100 space stations, ranging in size from a little 20-person thing barely larger than the ISS to a massive million-person station, all in different orbits around different things. What is a "border"? What is "sovereignty" when you are not in an environment where you can (with enough effort) survive without other humans, or without very many other humans, and everyone is inextricably bound in life-or-death relationships, so there simply is no such thing as "self-sufficiency"? (Which I'd submit is a concept very important to sovereignty, even if it so basic to our Earth-thinking frame that we don't even consider it.)

I personally think almost everybody has a blind spot here, thinking a very particular part of the phase space of possible governance is the only one. Even the perennial debates on HN and such are basically between "modern capitalism" and "socialism", two systems that in the grand scheme of things are very similar to each other and only argue about how much sovereignty the state has vs. its citizens, where if you are against one then you must be in favor of the other, as if they are the only two possible methods of governance conceivable.

Even without going as crazy as hypothesizing a space-based civilization, history offers up quite a few alternatives to the modern conception. Some of them are hard to see, because we back-project our assumptions about nation-states on to history if we aren't very careful. But the early Roman empire had a much more complicated de facto structure, and Middle Ages Europe is quite difficult for a modern full of preconceived notions to properly understand, because we simply have no modern referent for the relationship that existed between the Church and the various other polities of the time.

Are they? The article was arguing that Somalia was a stateless society. I don't know much about these particular clans. Do they have a defined and more permanent central power structure?

As I understand it from van Notten, the power is institutional and fluid. There are accustomed, practiced, entrenched norms of behavior and custom, which provide general rules for what behavior is against the law -- although it becomes a matter of law only when it affects someone else to the degree they want to seek justice to redress a wrong. Power is embodied by clan leaders (elders who have the support of the majority of their community) and judges, etc, but is fluid in the sense that at any time, if they do something the community doesn't support, they will be replaced casually by their community.

Well, no, clans are clans.

A clan is a group united by a real or perceived kinship. It is a form of extended family.

A tribe is a confederation of families that live closely with one another, have a common culture/dialect/ethnicity/etc, and a leader.

A state is a politically organized community that may or may not be sovereign.

A nation is an aggregate of people and/or communities united by common traits and living within a particular territory or country.

Possibly worth noting - each of these is a coercive system which has some aspect of a "monopoly on violence," just at different levels of abstraction. So by that definition, a clan could be considered a degenerate form of state.

By that definition, even a nuclear family is a degenerate form of state. Let's not foist frankenstein phrases on ill-fitting subjects to justify an invalid premise.

I would agree that it is, although reasonable people can and probably would disagree. The most fundamental monopoly on coercion (and violence) is claimed by parents over their children.

Isn't the important point here to do with the point at which an individual can, if they want to and are willing to spend the energy, alter a particular instance of disagreement? whereas in the Somali (or other non-government system), individuals can both effect particular justice according to a particular grievance, and individuals can effect what justice is done and how, individuals in our countries have no such ability, overwhelmed on basically every level by the power of the government?

> By that definition, even a nuclear family is a degenerate form of state.

Indeed, it is. This is an ancient idea, going back to the Classical era at least.

Good point.

Minor counter-point: I'm not sure if libertarianism is the goal of Somalians. A certain degree of liberty -- a significant say in how they conduct their own lives and not having a government telling them what not to do as much as we are used to -- but I think they also see the value of a court to temper individual liberty in certain cases.

A couple differences between their system and ours: the point where individual rights and social limitations meet is found where another individual suffers some grievance -- some of which, however, appear to be cultural and not material, although I'm not sure how small this segment is. Also, they seem to have some say in their courts, who administers justice for them, and how its administered.

> functioning fine

Here is the US Overseas Security Advisory Council report on Somalia for 2017: https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=218...

> Pervasive and violent crime is an extension of the general state of insecurity in Somalia. Serious, brutal, and often fatal crimes are common. Kidnapping and robbery are particular problems in Mogadishu, other areas in the south, and in Galmuduug and Puntland.

For a libertarian, they're not worried about that because they think they'll have enough guns to protect their.. uh, their bitcoin miner i guess? i'm not sure how they think they'll earn money.

Ever met a poor libertarian? They expect they'll be living in their walled compound surrounded by their private police force.

I can't remember where I first heard it, but one of the factors affecting American politics in particular is the idea that many poor people see themselves as rich people in waiting. They're going to make it, once they get their break. This of course, is false for the overwhelming majority of poor people, but still causes their vote to skew further towards measures which harm them and favour the rich than it otherwise would, because they see themselves benefitting once they do finally make it.

It sounds similar to a quote generally attributed to John Steinbeck, but the exact quote that gets repeated appears to be disputed:

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck#Disputed

On socialism and capitalism he is quoted as writing:

> "I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist."

The term you're looking for is "temporarily embarrassed millionaire"

And what is going to stop your "private police force" from simply taking control and kicking your out (or executing you)? A contract?

Edit: I would expect leadership in those circumstances to simply fall to the most effective leader in that kind of context (which I suspect would be someone from a military background) rather than someone who used to have a big bank balance. Give that a few generations and you'll end up with hereditary clan leadership and eventually "royalty" - all royal lines can usually be traced so some "stupendous badass".

An excellent question. My personal answer would be, "a powerful central government through which I (or my estate) can seek remediation."

Maybe your "powerful central government" could organise an effective police force?

In fact this has happened multiple times in Mexico where a private militia created to protect people from cartels simply takes over the drug business.

> It may be the only country in the world that has shown that they “don’t need central government” and was functioning fine.

For certain definitions of "functioning fine", yeah sure I'll buy that.

> Also, I have doubts about how the Somali system would survive serious clan or national conflicts once they emerge, or how the problem of violence spiraling out of hand would be contained without a powerful central government.

A quote directly from the article, and I can only say, I suppose we are seeing that. Blood feuds, mass killings and kidnappings, rape, ...

This entire source article could only have been written with the sturdiest and most carefully constructed horse-blinders.

You might compare the violence with that in a very strict society, like the Soviet Union, or with any other country, whether Latin American countries lately, many African nation with various governments, or certain parts of North America (Dade might be a forerunner), though, so is the reason for violence in Somalia attributable to their form of law?

A relevant thought experiment:

How would you set up a social system, knowing that you would be reborn into it as a completely random member? That is, your chance of getting an education, having family stability, finding work and otherwise surviving being exactly in line with the way you set that system up from the beginning?

Secondarily relevant question: which existing system offers you the best probability of a satisfactory life given that random start? What features of that system make it better?

Kantian republic.

> Secondarily relevant question: which existing system offers you the best probability of a satisfactory life given that random start? What features of that system make it better?

One of the Northern European social democracies is a strong bet. High-trust societies with free education, good social safety net in cast I end up in a broken family, and stable democracies with proven track record of improving the society vs. improving conditions just for the main voting populace.

I think that high-trust part is one of the most important ones if often overlooked. I think it means in practice that you don't have to worry of being ruined even if your clique doesn't win, and you don't have to second-guess everyone's true motives.

Good points.

Nice suggestion! What would be your own answer to it?

I find it awful interesting that the person whose book is being cited was killed.

That's actually incorrect: according to his obituary[0], he died of heart failure.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120205104310/http://www.isil.o...

New rule of politics:

When faced with facts that contradict your beliefs blame Hilary Clinton...

I think Hilary was involved with a plot to dis-prove capitalism works without government so she had him killed.

From other reading, I got the impression the circumstances were suspicious. The obit refers to heart failure, but without details. So I'm left without any certainty.

As luck would have it, immigration to Somalia is both inexpensive and free from bureaucratic oversight, so I would encourage anyone who is inspired by this article to go with godspeed.

I think the most telling bit of the whole article is where the author is described as "a man who was eventually killed while trying to create his own region in Somalia"...

Strictly speaking Somalia and its various autonomous regions do now have government, though you still won't face many restrictions on migration, particularly not if you look like you have assets. But a certain period of Somalia's history is very appealing to a certain type of "libertarian" to whom the idea of no taxes, decentralised everything, no taxes, "polycentric law" consisting of clans trying to pay each other off to avoid blood feuds, no taxes, rugged entrepreneurs starting businesses against amazing odds and did I mention no taxes.

Unfortunately it doesn't correspond well with the reality of a society where ransoms were a major source of national income, stronger families generally could ensure the "judgement" they wanted irrespective of the facts of the case and women didn't even have enough ability to "preserve the dignity and integrity of their body" to not have bits of their genitals chopped off by clan elders.

> I think the most telling bit of the whole article is where the author is described as "a man who was eventually killed while trying to create his own region in Somalia"...

As I noted elsethread, that's not true: he died of heart failure[0].

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120205104310/http://www.isil.o...

And this, despite being an advocate for personal freedom and limited government, is why I am not a libertarian or an anarcho-capitalist. They live in a fantasy land.

Culture matters, and no one form of government works for every nation. That is why it is just as much folly to impose western democracy upon the world as it would be to impose anarcho-capitalism upon the world.

From the historical perspective of great dynasties of civilized societies, central government is basically a byproduct of power struggle. One powerful group wants to impose their power on everyone else, or perhaps the whole society wants to impose the collective will on everyone else, so they create a central government. When that doesn't happen, you get nations which are tied together by common bonds, but they decide matters by convening councils and mutual agreement and compromise, and don't attempt to force their will. But all are usually happy to force their will on other nations.

Generally speaking, cultures that have strict observances of Gods that require things of their peoples are a lot more into imposing their will on others. Every society collectively agrees to buy into the way that society works, because the implicit threat is that if you don't buy into it, your neighbor will kill you.

There is a difference between the formerly British controlled Somaliland and the former Italian colony of Somalia. The latter fell apart but the former retained a semblance of civil society. Without having read the article (it is blocked from my work account) I suspect the article is actually discussing Somaliland rather than Somalia.

This is a libertarian discussing Somalia. The title sounds ridiculous because the article is ridiculous ideologically-motivated nonsense.

Nope - Somaliland is a pretty dangerous place, too. From https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/somalia:

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advise against all travel to Somalia, including Somaliland except for the cities of Hargeisa and Berbera to which the FCO advise against all but essential travel.

And from https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...:

Violent crime, such as kidnapping and murder, is common throughout Somalia, including in Puntland and Somaliland. Illegal roadblocks are also widespread.

By which measure are we determining success?

Here are some better articles about Somalia in the same vein as this one, which is sub-par.

[0] https://mises.org/library/stateless-somalia-and-loving-it

[1] https://mises.org/library/anarchy-somalia

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-12278628

Thanks for these links.

The Stateless article is a good book report. One nice phrase from it: "Thus while a judge may form his own principles, his customers will decide his competence as a judge."

One error to be aware of is in the following paragraph. Successful plaintiffs are not free to resort to self-help to enforce payments. Self-help, as I understand it through van Notten, is a last ditch measure when no justice is agreeable. Successful rulings are enforced by an individual's own jilib, according to van Notten.

Let's send Peter Thiel there. I'm sure he'd love it.

how do you sue companies out of existence if there's no government?

You can only down vote me so much Peter.

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