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Can somebody who understands Libertarianism help me with the following thought experiment?

Suppose Libland is a libertarian state. The occupants of Libland stay alive by eating Food. Xia is another state. For whatever reason, they don't like Libland, and for whatever reason, they can produce Food much more cheaply than Libland.

Xia starts flooding the Libland market with cheap Food, so that it's is uneconomic for anyone in Libland to produce Food, and the Food industry disappears.

Suddenly Xia cuts of Libland's food supply, and invades several days later. Libland has no means of producing food in short order, and they cannot buy it from anyone else for some reason (for example Xia is the only other state, or it would take too long to open trading routes with other states).

How does Libertarianism cope with this situation?

[edit: please don't treat me as stupid or a troll. I genuinely want to understand libertarianism, and extreme counter-examples are a method of understanding that I find very helpful]

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This is an interesting example but I think it's not very really helpful in understanding Libertarianism.

First let me answer your question directly: in this example, Libland is undoubtedly screwed because Xia has a monopoly on the food supply. The people of Libland would not be able to cope with this situation and they'd most likely be overrun. Sure, there will be pockets or resistance with guerrillas doggedly fighting on for years or decades, but as a state, Libland would no longer exist.

Nevertheless, I think that the example isn't helpful because of two positions:

1) The unexplained reason why Xia can produce food so cheaply. 2) That it would be uneconomical for anyone other than Xia to produce food.

In the real-world, there would be a competitor for Xia to supply food. Even if Xia started off as the only supplier, someone would realise that they could enter the market supplying food that's a little cheaper, higher quality or just a little more different. The people of Libland, knowing the dangers of relying on only one source, would then also start purchasing from the competitor _in_addition_ to Xia.

I therefore think that your hypothetical scenario wouldn't exist outside of the 'thought laboratory'.

the example isn't helpful because of [...] 1) The unexplained reason why Xia can produce food so cheaply.

No explanation is needed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_advantage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

Well, I think an explanation in real-world terms is needed, not theoretical definitions. For example:

1) Does Xia have better climatic conditions? If so, why wouldn't neighbouring countries have similar conditions to become a viable competitor?

2) Do the have better packing and transportation technology? If so, why can't another country develop/buy/steal the technology?

3) Etc, etc.

Hence, my point is that the imposed constraints may not normally exist.

Interestingly, substituting gas for food, this very scenario is playing out while we speak. http://news.google.com/news?q=ukraine+gas+crisis

Given this situation (two and only two competing states), libertarianism is probably less viable. In the real world, however, you have a greater number of players.

If Libland has positive economic relations with other states (as most free people seem to prefer), it would theoretically have alternative sources of food from those allies. In addition, unless Libland's government had irrationally incited Xia's actions (theoretically, an unlikely choice for a free society), other states would see this a flagrant attack on Libland and come to its aid.

The example is certainly viable for a case where one state (out of over 200 in the real world) has a monopoly on producing any essential good, or where Xia's military is more powerful than the combined strength of all potential opposing states. I don't think the example extends beyond those corner cases, however.

My hypothesis is extreme and doesn't necessarily correspond with the real world, but proposing it and modifying it as others come up with criticisms is one pedagogical tool I would like to apply in this situation.

To answer your points:

* yes, Libland could buy Food from alternative sources. To extend the discussion I would need to adjust my hypothesis.

* no, the other states would not come to Libland's aid. If they were libertarian, they would not get involved in other states' disputes, and in any case they would know Libland would never come to their aid, so why should they reciprocate?

But the other states don't matter! If Libertarian country A is in trouble (from an aggressor, not of its own doing) and free citizens from Libertarian country B want to get involved, they are free to do so. It's none of B's government's business! It would not even occur to a Libertarian that he or she might require the government's permission.

Tho' given that the Libertarian value is long-term freedom, it's unlikely for a Libertarian nation (not the same thing as s state) to be caught napping. A Libertarian country is likely to have a well-trained and well-armed militia, but not much equipment or experience or inclination for expeditionary warfare.

Indeed, people do go abroad(independently of government decree) to fight for causes they believe in. Just look at the Spanish civil war.

Or American pilots joining the RAF in WW2.

Once Xia initiates the use of force the gloves are off basically. Libertarianism doesn't permit initiation of force but does permit an overwhelming and decisive response. Xia would find itself "liberated" in short order.

On empty stomachs versus well feed soldiers? Who might be conscripted and organized?

Now you're just being ridiculous. What country wouldn't have food reserves? Even tinned food in supermarkets, let alone military stockpiles.

Unless Xia managed to perfectly conceal its dislike for its neighbour, that is. Perhaps they had MAGIC UNICORNS to help?

What country wouldn't have food reserves?

The United States does not have food reserves (other than grain stored in grain elevators, which grain Tome implied Libland would instead be importing just-in-time). Here is what the United States has to look forward to in a national disaster:

http://www.google.com/search?q=you+will+survive+nuclear

You are a survivor. Doomsday has occurred and you are a survivor. While you are waiting for the spouse and kids to get home maybe you should do something practical. Like go down to the supermarket and lay in a bit of an extra stock.

You may notice that the little corner store has closed. If he has believed the rumor, he wants to save his stock. And besides, your money may not be worth anything tomorrow. You thought you had seen rapid inflation before but this is like from zero to a million in sixty seconds.

At the supermarket, if you are early enough, you will find pandemonium. If not, you will find practically nothing. Maybe a large bag of dog food (take it) and some cans of floor wax (forget it). The rest of the stuff was all in those carts that you met come flying up the walk as you came running down.

There won't be any girls at the cash registers, (they have done their shopping and gone). Besides, the cash registers aren't working anyhow, with no power. It may have taken the hired manager a little longer to figure out that he should grab what he can and head home to his family, but he has probably gone now. The only cops you will see are the one's grabbing stuff themselves.

Why would anyone in Libland be interested in the motives of its neighbour? Foreign policy and intelligence is normally the realm of a government. Who performs that role in Libland, and what is their incentive to do so?

Err, the government does.

Perhaps you ought to go to Wikipedia and look up the difference between Libertarianism and Anarchy?

Foreign policy is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Libertarianism.

How does a Libertarian system decide which roles (like researching the intentions of foreign states, and defending against them) a government should play, and which (like presumably researching the weather, and defending against natural disasters) it shouldn't?

Moreover, how does it morally confiscate wealth to finance programs from those inhabitants that don't want to pay for said activities?

So Xia fights Libland until its food reserves are depleted.

Precisely. My point is that once the situation I described has been arrived at, there's no hope for Libland.

Therefore, I presume, Libertarianism has a way to prevent the situation arising in the first place. What is it?

If the residents of Libland sense that they might be attacked, they would obviously keep food reserves or start buying only home-grown food in order to support their own industry.

It's not in their interest to do that individually, but only as a matter of domestic policy.

Of course it is. If there's a huge uncontrollable risk, people will insure themselves against it. If people know that they might be attacked and don't have enough food, they will hoard some.

My point is that unless the nation collectively hoards food for the military then it's not worth doing.

If they hoard individually it buys them a few more months of survival in dire circumstances. What's the point? They might as well spend their money to best enjoy their remaining time before invasion.

If everyone stockpiles individually for themselves and their families then you have a massive distributed cache that is more resilient that a centralized warehouse that can be bombed.

You seem to think the responsibilities of "the state", "the military" and "individuals" are distinct. They're not. Some individuals like to pretend they are, and rely on the government to do X (and some governments play the same game and rely on individuals to do Y) but reality will always eventually assert itself, whatever system of government you prefer.

But they won't stockpile individually, because it's in no one's individual interest to stockpile. (This is an example of the Prisoner's Dilemma).

I agree with you that "reality will always assert itself" but I'm having a hard time understanding how anyone things that Libertarianism can be that reality.

Libertarians act in the interest of preserving freedom in the long term, not maximizing personal wealth in the short term. That's one of the key differences between Libertarians and Anarcho-Capitalists. A Libertarian might stand up and say, look, our neighbours our hostile, I really think we ought to stockpile food, and if people are convinced (because it's true) then they'll do it. But the government will not say "we need to stockpile food so we're introducing a stockpile tax". Do you see the difference?

I completely agree that Libertarianism can't be retro-fitted onto any existing human society.

I do see the difference, I just happen to fancy my chances better under the system where the government imposes a stockpile tax than the system which leaves it up to the market -- even more so when, as I've mentioned in other posts, it's not about stockpiling, but about maintaining self-sufficiency in the face of an alternative that is more "efficient" economically.

Regarding your second paragraph, and completely independently, how do you propose we reach a libertarian society from the position we are now?

And how do Libertarians ensure that those they share a state with act "in the interest of preserving freedom in the long term, not maximizing personal wealth in the short term" in the particular cases where that may be non-rational?

They can't. That's the flaw. You basically have to start again with a bunch of Libertarians who raise their kids Libertarian (this is the easy bit) without it descending into a cult (this is the hard part).

The problem with retrofitting it is unless you already have the no-coercion culture and infrastructure in place, too many people acting in their personal short-term self-interest find coercion easier. Which doesn't mean mugging people in the street; it's as mild as "my vote for your handouts of their money".

If I tell you there would be no food in a month, then you wouldn't stockpile some? I don't believe this.

Well it depends on other factors, but that's not the point. In this situation:

* Firstly, who's to tell Liblanders that they risk invasion? It's not clear that Libertarianism supports the notion of foreign policy, diplomacy, espionage etc.

* Secondly, all the food in the country is coming from Xia. Once demand grows Xia realises that Libland has recognised the threat and invades immediately.

The same way we find out about anything. Companies like Reuters and CNN tell us while the CIA is still snoozing.

It is entirely clear that Libertarianism does support those things and one of the two roles of a Libertarian government is the physical security of the nation and its citizens.

OK, I'll grant you the existence of the media reporting from foreign countries (although I fail to see how the "What's Xia up to" branch of Reuters makes any money).

Now, a worthy chap sees a report about Xia on CNN and gets suspicious. How's he going to get enough money to mount a publicity campaign warning Libland citizens of the danger?

There might be food insurance companies. They would have advertisements telling people of a probable military intervention by Xia and recommend people to buy food insurance in order to be safe. Regarding your second point: The realization that Xia might attack will probably not come suddenly but slowly. So people will gradually begin investing in food insurance. It's unlikely that Xia turns from friend to enemy in a matter of days.

The realization that Xia might attack will probably not come suddenly but slowly

Just like 9-11, Dec 7, 1941, the anschluss, mongol invasions...the Hitties and Philistines versus the Israelites, yeah, military ops are always telegraphed.

"In 1993, Ramzi Yousef used a truck bomb to attack the World Trade Center in New York City" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#1993_World_Trade_Cente...

"War between Japan and the United States had been a possibility each nation had been aware of (and developed contingency plans for) since the 1920s" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Backgrou...

"Austria was merged into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. There had been several years of pressure from Germany and there were many supporters within Austria for the "Heim ins Reich"-movement, both Nazis and non-Nazis." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss

Your less specific in the details of your other facts so it's hard to get specific counter-facts on them.

You didn't talk of a military in your first post. Assuming that there exists a military paid for by taxes, than it would probably have its own food reserves. If there is no government military, then private corporations would start offering protection services, which would probably also have food reserves.

I'm not trying to make a point about military. I'm trying to make a point about self-sufficiency at the state level.

The military may well have reserves, but if they are supplied by Xia, all bets are off once those reserves are depleted.

If Libland does not have the capacity to generate Food during a protracted war then it is vulnerable to external aggression. However, I don't see a way that a Libertarian state can ensure that sufficient Food production capacity is maintained in the presence of cheap Food available on the international market.

And the point is not food either. "Food" is an arbitrary good that people rely on to survive.

If Libland did not have the capacity to generate Food, I would think Liblanders would have unique and unusual ways of being resourceful with Food and its storage, knowing full well that they are dependent on Xia for it. Canning, freeze-drying and other methods of preservation would probably be innovated to an extreme in this massively unrealistic metaphorical Libland.

What's the incentive for them to innovate that?

Survival.

As a collective, yes. But what's the incentive for any one individual to attempt to innovate, especially given the high chance of his attempt failing? He might as well just wait for someone else to innovate.

Indeed everyone else will wait for someone else. Prisoner's Dilemma. Oops.

If that individual has progeny to nurture and protect, I would think that individual would take measures to innovate methods to do so, including grouping together with other individuals with common goals. Even if he or she didn't, the survival instinct would still persist. If that grouping no longer serves those inviduals, then they would likely want to disband it, especially if there were a sub-group of parasitic individuals within it that existed simply to maintain that group if that was their only method of survival.

If you're going to cop out with intellectual laziness rather than provide your own opinions and observations, I think I am justified in referring to someone else's work on this topic who has addressed everything you are anemically trying to assert: http://www.jrbooksonline.com/PDF_Books/why_govt_doesnt_work....

Thank you for the reference. There was no need to be rude.

Regarding the title of the reference, I'm happy to accept that government doesn't work, but I can't understand why libertarians think that libertarianism does. I shall save further comment until I've had a look at the reference.

How is flippantly pointing out some simplified abstraction like the Prisoner's Dilemma not rude? Anyway:

"In Game Theory, simple mathematical ``games´´ such as the prisoner's dilemma or the ``chicken´´ race, model situations where there is a potential benefit for players in finding a way to coordinate their action. All the ``theorems´´ about such games merely restate in formal terms the informal hypotheses that were put in the model. It certainly does not follow that government is the right way to achieve this coordination — though such is precisely the non sequitur claim of statists. Actually, it is possible to apply game theory to compare coordination through government coercion with coordination through market competition; and this exercise in game theory will easily show how dreadful the effects of government intervention are."

Libertarian thinking is predicated on the concept of minimal government, such as the author of that document (who was the Libertarian Party candidate for President). I'm confused as to why you would accept that government doesn't work, yet think that is somehow in conflict with libertarianism.

Having now read it, it doesn't deal with my original point which is essentially:

Libertarianism risks outsourcing manufacture of vital goods to foreign states of dubious intent, leaving domestic industry to die with no means of resurrecting it in an emergency.

The closest the above reference comes to dealing with this issue is:

* with free international trade, nobody will want to attack Libland because they can get at all its resources cheaply anyway, and

* Xia won't actually be able to invade Libland because they'll be too busy dealing with their own citizens, who, impressed by Libland's affluence, are too busy trying to convince Xia's rulers to convert to Libertarianism.

People will keep reserves big enough, so that they last long enough to rebuild their national food industry. Or as I said earlier they might continue buying domestic products in order to keep that industry alive. Even if most people neglect the risk, there will probably be individuals who keep operating food industries (even at a loss) in hope that in the resulting war they might make huge profits.

People will keep reserves big enough

How big are your food reserves that you have on hand right now? One year? Two years? Ten years?

http://a.abcnews.com/images/abc_doomsday_080812_mn.jpg

You don't tell your neighbors about it, do you? They might say, "Oh, I don't need to store any food. I'll just go over to cx01's house and eat his food."

What would your neighbors think if you told them in advance that they couldn't have any of your food, that you personally sacrificed for in the form of opportunity cost? Would they think that you're not very neighborly? When the National Guard comes around to collect all of your stored food so that it can be distributed equally among your neighbors, are you planning on handing it over peacefully?

http://proliberty.com/observer/20070917.htm

Paul James, 85, standing beside some 200 cases of Mountain House freeze dried food. Purchased and trucked all the way cross country from Oregon in 1975, this "mountain" of food was recently pulled down from where it was stored for 37 years. [...] The year was 1975. At that time many Americans were concerned that the Cold War with Russia could turn hot. People all over the country were building bomb shelters in their backyards and storing large quantities of food.

I was one of them. I didn’t build a shelter, but I did order $10,000 worth of Mountain House freeze dried food

My arguments should be understood in the context of tome's posts, not regarding my current situation.

Personally I don't keep reserves because there's no risk of war (at least I think so). If there was war and I had reserves, then libertarian ethics would allow me to defend my reserves (with force).

The context of Tome's posts is that the war risk is secret. Why would another nation think that it had a good chance of successfully invading a nation that was prepared for such an invasion? Did Germany decide to invade France because the former figured the latter new well in advance of, and was well prepared for, the invasion plans?

The nation that does not prepare for war, is at risk for war. If you personally do not have any food stored, and you and I live in the same nation, it puts me personally at risk of war.

"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line"

Massive French government fortification program designed to protect their borders with Germany and Italy.

France knew perfectly well that the Germans were a clear and present danger. They just could not do anything about it - despite having that great protector: government military.

If war risk is secret then a government won't help and that's what we're debating about.

And it's not in the government's interests to do it either, if it would cost votes.

Indeed, and I'd put similar points to anyone who proposed "true" direct democracy.

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