The Myth of National Defense

The Myth of National Defense is a book edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, published in 2003 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute,^[1] and contributed to by various anarcho-capitalist and libertarian authors, about the merits of replacing government defense agencies with private defense agencies.^[2] Hoppe himself argues that it is dangerous to give monopoly power over the use of force to any entity, as there is then nothing to prevent it from being abused. The chapter by Larry J. Sechrest argues that privateering provides historical examples of how private defense forces were actually superior to government naval forces in many ways, including the well-being of the sailors; the less destructive nature of this sort of conflict; etc. Contrasting the book to Hoppe's Democracy: The God That Failed, Andy Duncan, notes, "Its one drawback is that it does lack the organic unity of the Professor's earlier book on democracy, mainly because he failed to write the whole thing himself."^[3]

Table of contents

• Introduction by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
• Section 1 – State-Making and War-Making
  • Chapter 1 – The Problem of Security; Historicity of the State and "European Realism" by it:Luigi Marco Bassani and Carlo Lottieri
  • Chapter 2 – War, Peace, and the State by Murray N. Rothbard (added posthumously)
• Section 2 – Government Forms, War, and Strategy
  • Chapter 3 – Monarchy and War, by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
  • Chapter 4 – Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation or Monopoly? by Bertrand Lemennicier
  • Chapter 5 – Is Democracy More Peaceful than Other Forms of Government? by de:Gerard Radnitzky
• Section 3 – Private Alternatives to State Defense and Warfare
  • Chapter 6 – Mercenaries, Guerrillas, Militias, and the Defense of Minimal States and Free Societies by Joseph R. Stromberg
  • Chapter 7 – Privateering and National Defense: Naval Warfare for Private Profit by Larry J. Sechrest
  • Chapter 8 – The Will to be Free: The Role of Ideology in National Defense by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
  • Chapter 9 – National Defense and the Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Clubs by Walter Block
  • Chapter 10 – Government and the Private Production of Defense by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
  • Chapter 11 – Secession and the Production of Defense by de:Jörg Guido Hülsmann

See also

• Anarcho-capitalist literature
• List of anarchist books

References

External links

• The Myth of National Defense: Essays on the Theory and History of Security Production, available in Google Books