I am still re-reading The Blank Slate. In his chapter on violence, he endorses Hobbes. On p. 330, he writes,
Adjudication by an armed authority appears to be the most effective general violence-reduction technique ever invented. . .there can be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice system as opposed to anarchy. The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 percent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence. Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of the law. Many historians argue that people acquiesced to centralized authorities during the Middle Ages and other periods to relieve themselves of the bureden of having to retaliate against those who would harm them and their kin. And the growth of those authorities may explain the hundredfold decline in homicide rates in European societies since the Middle Ages.
See also Mark Weiner, The Rule of the Clan. A few remarks.
1. This chapter challenges the more anarchist-leaning libertarian views. Instead, Pinker argues that it is natural for humans to form coalition, to fear others’ coalitions, and to launch pre-emptive strikes on relatively small pretenses. (Of course, governments do this as well. Pinker would not argue that nation-states are inherently peaceful with one another. Quite the contrary.) Another excerpt, from p. 331:
When law enforcement vanishes, all manner of violence breaks out: looting, settling old scores, ethnic cleansin, and petty warfare among gangs, warlords and mafias.
2. Reading this chapter, I could not help thinking of Baltimore. Another excerpt, also from p. 331:
The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem banal, but it is often overlooked in today’s still-romantic climate. Government in general is anathema to many conservatives, and the police and prison system are anathema to many liberals. Many people on the left, citing uncertainty about the deterrent value of capital punishment compared to life imprisonment, maintain that deterrence is not effective in general. And many oppose more effective policing of inner-city neighborhoods, even though it may be the most effective way for their decent inhabitants to abjure the code of the streets. Certainly we must combat the racial inequities that put too many African American men in prison, but. . .we must also combat the racial inequities that leave too many African Americans exposed to criminals.
He does proceed to point out that drug laws, by creating an underground economy in which participants cannot call in police to contain disputes, help to promote a climate of violence.
The evidence cited in the quote doesn’t really prove causation, though. As has been pointed out by others, societies may be relatively more or less violent for many reasons. Thus, we must ask if a state is going to improve the situation in a particular society or make things worse. There is also the question of measurement… if I lived in North Korea, I would be thrilled with a murder rate double what it is now if that was the price to pay for no mor Kims.
In Conceived In Liberty and other places, Murray Rothbard liked to point to his particular favorite Historical case of colonial-era Central Pennsylvania as an example of practically complete and ideal (to him) Anarchy which exhibited a high level of spontaneous and orderly cooperation and a low level of chaotic crime and violence. Plenty of Libertarian scholars have pointed to other similar examples.
I’d guess they would say there are many ways to skin this particular cat, and that Pinker is overemphasizing one and omitting the others, which has the effect of giving the modern state more credit than it deserves.
Government in general is anathema to many conservatives
Libertarians maybe but conservatives seem to be very much for law and order and are willing to spend for it. Conservatives would probably be more than willing to see money transferred from schooling to more and better police. Where I think conservatives are wrong is in supporting the war on drugs.
My opinion on Baltimore is that job one of Government is to suppress violence. That means before you talk about jobs, schools or opportunity you need to have driven the violence down at least to say 2 or 3 homicides per 100,000 persons a year. In fact I think life would great in Baltimore if the homicides were down to that level. I think the with low levels of violence those other problems would be greatly reduced.
Interesting topic. I watched 15 minutes of the movie, “Get rich or die trying” last night, about growing up and dealing drugs in the inner city. I can’t remember the number of times the older father figure in the movie stressed how important ‘Honor’ was to his younger minions.
How are “homicides” defined? Did the casualties of WWI and II count as homicides?
Or ask the Native Americans about the governmentalization of North America.
You seem to assume that the Native Americans did not have governments of their own before European settlement.
Also, doesn’t the quote refer to civilian-to-civilian homicide rates?
Okay, ask their governments.
I think war deaths are counted, but I can’t be totally sure about any particular quoted statistic.
In The Better Angels of Our Nature he goes into all this in much more detail. There is a plot there in which there is an unmistakable downward trend in killings from the middle ages into modern times, with the two world wars and the thirty-years war appearing as spikes bucking the trend. Also the period since WWII has been more peaceful than any similarly long period in history.
So, is Baltimore an example of too little LAW enforcement or too much? Both?
Btw, 10 to 60%? No debate? What percentage have governments typically purged in order to seize sovereignty, not even counting wars? Making a desert and calling it peace?
I randomly ran across this and thought it was interesting and somewhat topical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlement#Licence_to_crenellate
Basically, you had to apply for the privilege of self-defense. I wonder if, kind of how progressives think they are champions of progress when a lot of time they are front-runners of technologies such as birth control, if conservatives give states credit for technologies that would be available to anarchies if states weren’t primarily so good at conquering.
The general assumption is that post Freddie Gray, Baltimore went into a “too-little” state, which was met by an immediate jump in homicides.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-nationwide-crime-wave-1432938425
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/31/baltimore-homicides-worst-in-40-years/28284839/
(WSJ article explicitly makes the argument, but you have to do the WSJ trick to read it, so I also included the USA today article which at least has the stats.)