Rachel Maddow, a popular liberal commentator on MSNBC, recently iterated — for the umpteenth time — the standard liberal talking point of Somalia as a supposedly unanswerable argument against anarchy. The Somalia reference, when done according to formula, comes as the follow-up to a one-two punch – usually preceded by the “drown government in a bathtub” quote from Grover Norquist.
Following a snarky allusion to the idealized “small-government conservative” vision of society (“which, you know, when you put it that way, it sounds kind of bucolic and awesome, right?”), Maddow went in for the kill: “When you see it in action in a country that hasn‘t had a government in about 18 years, it actually looks like this. This is Somalia.”
But this is dirty pool for several reasons. First, no intelligent anarchist argues that the sudden and catastrophic implosion of the state will result in a peaceful, self-regulating society.
We’ve lived through centuries of the process which Pyotr Kropotkin described in “Mutual Aid” and “The State,” by which centralized territorial states suppressed bottom-up, self-organized alternatives, and caused civil society to atrophy. Under such circumstances, when the state suddenly disappears, the result is likely to be a power vacuum with nothing ready to take its place, and the proliferation of all sorts of social pathologies.
What most of us want to do is reverse the centuries-long process Kropotkin described, by building alternative social institutions, organized on a voluntary cooperative basis, to supplant the state. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, conventionally regarded as the father of anarchism, described it as devolving or submerging the state in the social body. And this by no means implies the anarcho-capitalist vision of a society where all functions are performed by for-profit business firms. It could just as easily mean a society of worker and consumer cooperatives, common property, free clinics, community supported agriculture, intentional communities, urban communes and squats, and the kinds of mutual aid arrangement described by Kropotkin in “Mutual Aid” and E.P. Thompson in “The Making of the English Working Class.”
So it would make far more sense to look at a stateless or near-stateless society that’s been that way for a long time, under comparatively stable conditions (like some of the near-stateless areas in Southeast Asia described by James Scott in “The Art of Not Being Governed”), and the institutions by which people peaceful govern their lives.
Second, “Somalia” does not equal “Mogadishu.” Most of the horrific, Mad Max scenes captured in Somalia are in Mogadishu, where the central state was most powerful before the collapse and the institutions of civil society were accordingly most atrophied. As Roderick Long, director of C4SS’s parent body the Molinari Institute, put it, “the farther one gets away from Mogadishu, the more one gets into relatively peaceful areas that have always been anarchic or close to it, barring occasional intrusions from the statebuilders in the city.” In other words, the further you get from Mogadishu, the less Somalia resembles “Somalia,” and the more it resembles the kind of stable society described by James Scott.
Third, the proper comparison to Somalia is not the United States and similar societies in the West, but to the actual state that existed in Somalia before the collapse of central power. Given that comparison, things in Somalia aren’t that bad at all. For example: a study by Benjamin Powell, Ryan Ford and Alex Nowrasteh took “a comparative institutional approach to examine Somalia’s performance relative to other African countries both when Somalia had a government and during its extended period of anarchy.” And it found that Somalia, when subjected to an honest comparison — “between Somalia when it had a functioning government, and Somalia now” — is less poor, has higher life expectancy, and has experienced a drastic increase in telephone lines.
I’d also add, parenthetically, that while Somalia is often celebrated by anarcho-capitalist types, in reality it hardly fits the anarcho-capitalist stereotype (especially in those areas away from Mogadishu). For example, there’s widespread communal ownership of land by extended families and clans, with only possessory or usufructory rights by individuals.
What of the $2.6 billion in loans from IMF and foreign banking gangsters lent to the dictator Siad Barre (from 1978 to 1991, more or less). The IMF asserts that it stopped the lending after the atrocities at Berbera and Hargeisa in 1988. However, the dictator is dead, the Somali people have never established another national government, and the UN, USA, NATO, EU, African Union, etc., keep insisting that they do. Why?
I think at least part of it is that the banking gangsters want their money back, don't care that the person they lent it to is dead, don't dare task his estate for the money (because that money is all gone, and because it would set for them a precedent they would not like), and are using the USA military as muscle to demand that the Somalis set up a nationalist central state so they can be taxed to pay off the debt. What can the system do if this concept spreads?
What would it look like for the Greek people to overthrow their government and repudiate the debts? Hungary? Portugal? Spain? Ireland? Iceland is most of the way there – see the recent election fun in Reykjavik.
How would the world look if the people of the USA were to repudiate the debt, bring down the government, and refuse to erect a new one? To you and me, it would look stateless, peaceful, a delight. To the banking gangsters, it would be an end to a very long gravy train they have been riding and riding and riding.
Somalis are certainly an interesting example of a people who have rejected Western-style government. In 1991, having ousted the dictator who had borrowed roughly $2.6 billion from the IMF and Western banks since 1978, entirely for the purpose of torturing and slaughtering Somalis, the people who had effected his removal were gathered in Mogadishu to look at their options.
From 1895 to 1960 they had been forced to endure European colonialism under the British (in part of Kenya and in the Crown “protectorate” of Somaliland), under the French (in the French Somali coast, later Djibouti), and under the Italians. They didn’t like it, at all. From 1960 to 1969 they had a corrupt parliamentary-type democracy which had been installed by the British and Italians, mostly for the benefit of British and Italian companies operating in the area. They didn’t like it, at all. From 1969 to 1978 they had a Marxist dictatorship under Siad Barre. During this time their education ministry developed a written language for Somalis. Other than that, it wasn’t very satisfying as a form of government. And when the dictator declared war on Soviet-backed Ethiopia, he lost all his economic benefits from the Soviets, and the war. The war for Somali independence from this dictator began in 1978, when he had switched to become a Western-backed dictator. And from 1978 to early 1991 the Somalis had a taste of Western dictatorship. They didn’t like it, at all, either.
This particular tale of possibilities was told to me next to a camp fire by a geologist who had been living in Mogadishu after he and his associates helped oust the dictator. The camp was near his shanty in a very tiny village on the road from Woble to Zeila. We had our conversation in late December 2000. The next part is very satisfying.
“A voice came on the radio and told us all to go home to our villages and return to our traditions. So I did. Of course, I stopped by the national archives and took these geological surveys of this area, since it seemed best that I have them.” And so there I was with an elder from his clan, this geologist, a translator from Borama’s Amoud University, a fisherman who wanted to visit his fishing vessel in Zeila, and the driver I’d hired for the trip. We looked at mineral samples he had collected, talked about the future, and had a great time.
It would be a mistake to say that the traditional form of government of Somalis is anything like anarchy. It is a patriarchal society, Sunni moslem, very interested in technology, and with great respect for both oral traditions and literacy. The form of government is kritarchy, and an excellent review of it is found in Michael van Notten’s book from Red Sea Press “The Law of the Somalis.” In my experience, Somali culture can be extremely sexist and xenophobic. But, of course, my experience of American culture is similar.
Between 1998 and 2001, my associates and I made numerous trips to Somalia, to places outlying Mogadishu far to the north and also to the South. Easily the most knowledgeable of these associates was Michael van Notten who spent years living in Somalia, Djibouti, and the Somali region of Ethiopia between 1990 and his death in 2002 (from socialised medicine, in France).
Not only is it very true what Rod Long says about how things are in Somalia the further you get from Mogadishu (though I don’t know of any direct experience of Somalia by Prof. Long) but also it is the case that there is a reason external to the preferences of Somalis why their country is often seen as destitute in Mogadishu in particular. And that externality is war. Since 1991, the UN, the USA, the EU, the African Union, and NATO have attempted at least 24 times to establish a new “national” government for Somalia. These attempts have been all violent, though they have had the pretence in about fifteen cases of a “peace conference” held in some other country with the “participation” (frequently coerced) of delegations of Somalis.
The USA has been involved in shooting wars in Somalia in 1992-1995 and in 2006-09. Thus, the success of the Somalis in having any sort of economy, having some of the lowest telecomm rates anywhere in Africa, and having as literate and as entrepreneurial a population as they do, is a testament to their own determination. Plus, of course, they have at various times killed a lot of foreign occupying troops, and every decent human being should understand about that.
Ask Rachel if she would rather live in Somalia or Uganda…
I'm reading Black Hawk Down right now, which really shows how the American military messed up Mogadishu. While it focuses mostly on the plight of the American soldiers, I think it also does justice to the perspective of the Somalis in Mogadishu. It also puts to lie the idea that Americans can "liberate" a foreign people by overthrowing their domestic government (the idea is obviously an oxymoron to begin with).
The main achievement of the book is to put the reader in the position of the soldiers. Basically, the book asks you "if you were in the middle of Mogadishu, with amazing weapons, and taking fire from all directions, what would you do?" The American soldiers basically had the choice of surrendering to an enraged mob (in a city where mobs had mutilated the bodies of Americans soldiers who got killed) or leveling the city. They chose to level the city. It was inevitable, unless you had the delusion that the Somalis would not resist the arrest of their leaders, or thought that military missions always went as planned.
The really sad thing comes when the reader gets the perspective of the local residents. Even when the American soldiers were not fighting, they were causing massive disruption to day-to-day life. The winds from constant low-level helicopter flights knocked over shanties and market stalls, even knocking over children or blowing clothes off of women in the street. Anyone who had been near a fight involving the helicopters suffered from constant anxiety induced by their presence. It didn't take long before I was starting to think that the phrase "Black Hawk Down" was a cheer.
Of course, we've hold the same stories (multiplied 1000 fold) from the current occupation of Iraq. It's sad that we didn't learn any lessons from our experience in Somalia in the 90s.
One thing that surprises me, probably more than it should, is the people on the ostensible Left who consider the Somali "pirates" some sort of score against statelessness. Consider their origin. If corporations were dumping toxic waste where I lived, I'd prefer "pirates" who attacked their ships to "regular governments" that acquiesced or actively colluded with the behavior.
Somalia has governing, statelike entities. That they are small groups dominated by tribes or thugs does not make them any less state-like the the mess we have. The difference is only one of scale. The individual Somalis are not self-governing.
Anarchy, properly understood, is not about no governance. It is about self-governance. If, as many of our congress-persons show daily, an individual is not capable of governing himself, how can he be qualified to govern others?
Travis
I had a feeling Jim would be the first to comment on this article…
Travis, it is worth reading Michael van Notten’s book, that Jim has referred to above, to get an idea of the traditional system of law in Somalia. I wouldn’t go as far as saying the clans are like states, and the “warlords” often pointed to are not traditionally the ones with the “power” as such – that rests with the elders – the warlords are only significant when they are actually needed. The only reason for their prominence at the moment is the general threat of another external intervention.
At least I think that’s roughly the way it has gone. I think it is quite interesting that the Somali peoples have managed to repel external influence so well, and it is fortunate that no-one (particularly the US federal government) will be able to afford endless armed interventions all over the world for that much longer. We can only hope that Iraq and Afghanistan are the last major ones, depending on how empire-crippling they eventually turn out to be.
Self-regulation is spontaneous, literally. It cannot be intricately pre-planned.
You lazy bastard! There's a transcript on the link I posted. But I love your work, so I forgive you.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/freeprize/2010/04/tr…
That's the DIRECT link to the transcript. Tell me what you think.
Hey,
I find Seth Godin’s approach to doing business very similar to your (Kevin Carson) decentralized organization theory. Listen here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/04/aprillinchpin.html
Godin is coming from an education/marketing side of things, but he’s essentially saying the same things! Especially in the first half of the mentioned talk, he’s focussing on the weakness and inefficiency of the current system. I don’t know if Godin is in any way an anarchist, mutualist or similar, but he’s a great thinker and has loads of influence. Getting him as a resource or even evangelist would do wonders for C4SS.
- Bleicke
Thanks, Bleicke (guilty as charged). I agree that's an amazing piece. I'll be looking at more of his work.
Thanks, Bleicke. Is there a transcript or summary anywhere? I’ve got dialup, and I doubt I could hear it over the TV at the bar where I usually get wireless access.
Claude Levasseur est l'auteur de l'enlèvement de Cédrika Provencher le 31 Juillet 2007 à Trois-Rivières.
Il est né le 10 Août 1961 il mesure 5'9' les cheveux noirs avec calvitie au-dessus de la tête un rond.
Il est alcoolique notoire & schizophrène & consommateur de cocaïne.
Il demeure sur la 25ème-Avenue près D'Hérelle à Montréal [St-Léonard]
le fuck?
"First, no intelligent anarchist argues that the sudden and catastrophic implosion of the state will result in a peaceful, self-regulating society."
revolutionary anarchists = no intelligent anarchists