I recently discussed Pinker on violence and earlier made some references to Foucault. Googling for that link I came upon this idiotic trashing of Pinker. It is asserted that Pinker’s graphs are “biased” without explaining how and accuses him of ignoring Foucault’s point about the importance of threats “institutionalizing” (or preventing) violence, when Pinker advances the same Hobbesian Leviathan hypothesis I discussed here. On the plus side this person claims Pinker has finished a new book soon to come out called “A History of Violence”. If that actually is the case, I look forward to it.
In a list of religious people put up by Walter Block I noticed the inclusion of Pete Boettke. I don’t recall Boettke mentioning religion before and was under the impression he was an atheist. In Brian Doherty’s book Radicals for Capitalism on page 437 Boettke recalls the good old days saying “The typical young IHS turk in the 1980s believed in the three A’s: anarchism, Austrianism, and atheism.” While a few of his peers have dropped the first two, Pete is still proudly Austrian (hence his blog, journal and courses) and perhaps less proudly anarchist. So I wonder about his C.S. Lewis moment. Bryan Caplan’s dissent from Austrianism has received a number of replies (not surprising given the Austrian penchant for argument), but his strident atheism is only even indirectly argued against by Larry Iannoccone. So my question to Pete is, if you were an atheist like your peers, what led you to that and what later made you decide against it?
Entitled to an Opinion 
June 21, 2008 at 7:57 pm
You mean Brian Doherty.
June 21, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve never even heard Pete Doherty’s music, but thanks to his prodigious drug use I’ve heard his name numerous times. I also have “Pete” on the brain when the subject is the Austrian Economists blog, as both Boettke and Leeson share the same first name.
June 21, 2008 at 8:13 pm
As for anarchism, I’m more and more of the opinion that even for market anarchists, the turn to full blown anarchism (as opposed to the limited form we have now, between nation states and within oligarchies, ala Hasnas) would still require “changing hearts and minds”, just like for the more common left wing anarchist. However, one of the supposed appeals of market anarchism is its “realism” as compared to the Bakuninists, eco-anarchists, etc.
Part of this change in opinion stems from Pinker, who cites in The Blank Slate how the Montreal police strike of some years back led to rioting and widespread property crime. A sober empirical look at the role of institutions and public opinion has also brought me “down to earth” on this matter.
So, when individualist anarchists say that the state is made up of the same people, with the same merits or demerits, that would exist absent the state – to illustrate that the state is simply this idea that cannot be some objective, outside enforcer of meta-rules – it’s only partially true. If the state really does serve as a kind of “idea” that keeps cheap opportunists from creating mayhem, then perhaps it’s a necessary illusion; necessary, that is, until all of society is of the “remnant” that Albert Jay Nock spoke so fondly of.
June 21, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Is this the police strike you’re referring to, Dain?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray-Hill_riot
I’d be inclined to argue that an occasional riot and a modest increase in property crime would be an acceptable price for shutting down the police state.
June 22, 2008 at 12:14 am
I actually thought Pinker’s example was poor. It was an instance of government provided security failing. It used to be the case that police, like other government workers, were prohibited from unionizing so strikes took place in the private sector. The private sector has largely quashed unions, which proliferate in the public sector. Furthermore, it was a brief instance of an institution that had filled the vacuum and prohibited alternatives disappearing, leaving little time for alternatives to emerge. Bruce Benson’s “The Enterprise of Law” is a good work to check out on that subject, though I side with Holcombe against him on the feasibility of anarchy.
June 22, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Hm, so the reason that people act nuts when law enforcement is restrained is because, essentially, they’ve been pre-empted from acting on their own by the state? Ok, but that’s a bit convenient for anarchists. I still agree, don’t get me wrong, but with this particular example of non-state solutions – defense – the pre-emption is so well established that there is little empirical evidence left to see how things could be different. My move to empricism was partly inspired by you, TGGP.
All we’ve got is, what, Somalia and ancient Iceland? So the case for anarchy becomes merely speculation in the extreme.
Unlike education, welfare and countless other things, where we see non-state actors providing (superior) alternatives to the state all over the place, it’s with defense that civil society has so atrophied due to state crowding out that it becomes much more difficult to try and convince others to take it a step further.
Again, it’s such a grand undertaking that we may as well be the “utopians” people think we are.
June 23, 2008 at 12:28 am
I am saying that there are alternative institutions that can and have existed (see Bruce Benson’s book) but do not because they have been at best crowded out but more often in cases like law enforcement outright banned. However, they cannot instantly spring into existence fully formed like Athena, especially considering that the police strike (which I’d like to repeat is only a plausible occurence in the union-dominated public sector) did not and was not expected to last a long enough time to recoup any investments made in forming those institutions.