I took these notes while reading Higgs'

If Men Were Angels:

R. J. Rummel

I have a book, High Adventure in Tibet: The Life and Labors of Pioneer Missionary Victor Plymire, by David V. Plymire, that describes conditions of anarchy there in the 1920's and '30's. It's not encouraging.

I suppose you could say that there was only one, or at most a couple, of hordes of poorly armed marauding heathens ravaging the, admittedly sparce, populace.

I don't recall that either Plymire was concerned to analyze the origins of either the chaos or the anarchy, let alone whether one caused the other, but I need to reread the book. It's been lost in my stacks for years. I've wanted to refer to it before; now I've found it.

For three bucks I'd seriously consider ordering a new copy, though these people (the one's I linked above) need to get the message about what "online business" means. Having to go upstairs, get my phone and call a phone number kills my impulse to buy, when I'm sitting here right now with my credit card and my keyboard.

Not that I mean to discourage anyone else.

Here's some pretty strong argumentation (and language):

Classic discussions of state versus nonstate societal outcomes usually involve static comparisons; they ignore the changes that occur systematically with the passage of time. Thus, for example, a Hobbesian or Lockean account stipulates that in a “state of nature,” which has no governing state, a great deal of disorder prevails, and adoption of a state brings about a more orderly condition: in terms of my notation, D-NS(0) > D-S(0). [Translation: Disorder in a Non-State condition (anarchy) is greater than Disorder in a State, -ed.] Analysts recognize that the people sacrifice some of their liberties when they adopt a state—Hobbes goes so far as to suppose that the people sacrifice all their liberties to an omnipotent sovereign in exchange for his protection of their lives. Even if the trade-off is less severe, however, L-NS(0) > L-S(0) [Liberty in Non-State is greater than Liberty in a State] upon the establishment of a state. A ruler always assures his victims that their loss of liberties is the price they must pay for the additional security (order) he purports to establish.

Well might we question whether the ruler has either the intention or the capability to reduce the degree of social disorder. Plenty of evidence exhibits state-ridden societies boiling with disorder. In the United States, for example, a country brimming with official “protectors” of every imaginable stripe, the populace suffered in 2004, according to figures the government itself endorses, approximately 16,000 murders, 95,000 forcible rapes, 401,000 robberies, 855,000 aggravated assaults, 2,143,000 burglaries, 6,948,000 larcenies and thefts, and 1,237,000 motor vehicle thefts (U.S. Census Bureau 2007, 191). The governments of the United States have taken the people’s liberties—if you don’t think so, you need to spend more time reading U.S. Statutes at Large and the Code of Federal Regulations, not to mention your state and local laws and ordinances—but where’s the protective quid pro quo? They broke the egg of our liberties, without a doubt, but where’s the bloody omelet of personal protection and social order?