Aviezer Tucker

Introduction

Emigration as a political and ethical problem is founded on the association of political organizations, states, with geographical entities, territories, mediated by a concept of sovereignty. I argue that this association is not necessary: It is possible to have non-territorial states that are not linked through sovereignty to a territory. Physical migration ceases then to be a political problem and becomes a phenomenon of human geography, and vice-versa, people can change their political affiliations, their citizenship, without having to change their domicile.

Robert Nozick developed a similar but crucially different "framework for utopia," conditions of free competition that allow the best "utopian" political communities to emerge and develop creatively and voluntarily (Nozick, 302). I will demonstrate that Nozick's framework is an incomplete and partially mistaken view of implementing a free market model in politics.

領土国家論への反駁

The standard territorial-monopolistic definition of 'state': "The political organization of a body of people for the maintenance of order within its territory by coercion" (Gilbert, 850. Cf. Weber, 78), excludes non-territorial state models. But is the state necessarily a territorial monopoly?

そこで―リバタリアン理論家としては奇妙な―領土国家論としてのノージックの主張及びそれに同調するMachanの主張を展開する。

Nozick argued that states are natural territorial monopolies. When several protective associations compete, territorial monopolies emerge as a result of contradictions between the regulations of different protective associations: When a citizen of one state or protective association acts toward a citizen of another in a way that constitutes a crime according to the laws of the second state but not according to the laws of the first state (Nozick, 10-25). Machan agreed with Nozick that a political monopoly is necessary for resolving conflicts of jurisdiction about rights: "... a good human community can have only one final authority, having jurisdiction over a homogeneous sphere of human occupancy, and commanding an enforcement agency with loyalty to no other final authority...." (Machan, 1983, 513). (...) Jurisdictional conflicts lead in Nozick's opinion to one of three solutions that result in the establishment of political monopoly over a territory: First, protective agencies engage in war of annihilation from which one agency emerges as the dominant one. Second, the battle results in a geographical division in which clients of conflicting states concentrate around their centers of power. "In either of these two cases does there remain very much geographical interspersal. Only one protective agency operates over a given geographical area" (Nozick, 16). Thirdly, the conflicting agencies reach an agreement, either to refer all disputes to a third authority, or to divide jurisdiction, so a federal structure emerges. "In each of these cases, almost all the persons in a geographical area are under some common system that judges between their competing claims and enforces their rights" (Nozick, 16).

こうした国家観は、David Schmidtzが“The Limits Of Government”にて次のように表現している。「私が「国家」という語を用いるのは、大まかに言って、与えられた地理的領土における最終的な民事当局〔或いはその請求者〕指す(I use 'the state' to refer, roughly, to the final civil authority (or claimant thereof) in a given geographical domain)」。Tuckerはこうした、ノージックの「政治的独占は、権利に関する管轄権の対立を解決するために必要である(political monopoly is necessary for resolving conflicts of jurisdiction about rights)」或いは「地理的な政治的独占的分割は、相反する国家規制の問題を解決する(Geographical political-monopolistic division solves the problem of conflicting state regulations)」という主張に対して、反駁を試みるのだ。

War is not necessarily over territory and does not result inevitably in regional territorial monopolies. Though most historical wars have been conducted over territories, economic and technological progress is making territorial wars increasingly obsolete. While most people lived from the land, the most common and non-perishable kind of wealth was land. Then war over it made sense. In today's world the most important forms of wealth are information and capital. The mobility of information and capital following the communication revolution makes territorial wars increasingly obsolete. Conquering a territory makes nobody smarter, but it makes investors withdraw capital. Even if states engage in war, under today's (and certainly tomorrow's) economic and technological conditions, it is more likely to be over information than over land. So, if war results in a division of power between monopolies, this division is not necessarily territorial.

The “War on Terror” demonstrates the advantages a non-territorial group enjoys in fighting a territorially based military. Al Qaeda is a non-territorial political entity. It does not need to control a territory in order to survive. Rather, its survival is based on constantly moving and changing territories. By contrast, when the United States military declared war on it, it attempted to achieve a control over territory and a large population of people who were not involved in the conflict. But controlling a territory is neither sufficient, nor necessary, in order to fight a nonterritorial political entity. Instead, it just wastes resources that could have been better spent on fighting a non-territorial war, on conquering, controlling and holding a territory whose most inhabitants had nothing to do with the conflict. The War on Terror attempted to use 19th century territorial means to fight against a 21st century non-territorial group of terrorists.

主権から契約、領土から市民へ

そこでTuckerが主張する「国家は、主権の代わりに社会契約、領土における暴力行使の独占の代わりに市民への奉仕を基礎とする(States are then based on social contracts instead of sovereignty, service to citizens instead of monopoly over the use of violence in a territory)」。これはいかに理解できるか。

The relations between free political agents and states under conditions of free competition are based on an explicit, voluntary, and limited social contract: Political agents choose among many state organizations according to their social contracts (law codes) and their reputations for good service. Political agents literally sign a social contract with a state for a duration. Citizens may change their state, just as customers can change their insurance policies. As much as one person may purchase insurance policies from more than one insurance company, so can a person be a citizen of more than one state (though it may be expensive). (...) voluntary social contracts omit the "original-sin-like" character of social contracts that are accepted "once and for all" either in a mythical or hypothetic-metaphysical situation. If social contracts are voluntary and explicit, they can have a limited duration. Political mistakes and experiments become reversible. The state bases its right to coerce its citizens on an explicit contract, a law code, that specifies the conditions of permissible coercion. A citizen who signed a contract with a state that has capital punishment may wish he or she had chosen otherwise when convicted of a capital offence, but the state bases its coercion on the original agreement, the signature on the social contract. (...) This social contract theory in conditions of free competition has significant advantages when compared to previous social contract theories (Hobbes's Leviathan, Locke's Second Treatise of Government, Kant's The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Rousseau's The Social Contract, Rawls's A Theory of Justice, and Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia): It is neither mythical nor hypothetical, but explicit and actual, voluntary and reversible.

In free political competition, the incentive for political improvement comes from the competition among states over citizens-customers. The best states serve as means for the purposes of their citizens. If they do not do so efficiently, they perish.(...) Each political free agent may sign voluntarily a contract with a state that fits that person's needs, values, abilities, circumstances, etc. In free competition, states that have uncompetitive social contracts, or whose management is corrupt or incompetent, literally go bankrupt. Failed states may be taken over by more successful ones, by states that wish to save a reformed version of the unsuccessful state (white knights in economic jargon), or disperse themselves, just as corporations do. Enterprising creative new states, adapted to changing needs and circumstances, would constantly appear.

/icons/hr.icon

個人的に思うノージックの重要性

移住或いは離脱(EXIT)のみでなく、想像にフォーカスしたことではないか?

非効率な国民国家体制を打開するExit

Panarchy, a political theory of non-territorial states founded on social contracts, introduced in 1860 by Belgian botanist and economist Paul Émile de Puydt, offers an alternative. It proposes that citizens may literally sign a social contract, a constitution, with a state, and may change their states without moving, just as customers can change their insurance policies. Explicit and voluntary social contracts have several advantages over standard social contract theories: they are neither mythical nor hypothetical, but explicit and actual, voluntary and reversible. Panarchy allows political agents to make reversible political mistakes and then exit and join another state. In Panarchy, the incentive for political innovation and improvement comes from competition between states over citizens-customers. Politics would then develop its own version of creative destruction, when failed states disappear and are replaced by better managed ones, generating a general progressive trend.

A different intellectual route that leads to similar conclusions is through Albert Hirschman’s exit and voice dichotomy. Albert O. Hirschman (1915-2012) in his short 1970 book Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States, offered a dichotomy of voice vs. exit: the less “voice” people have in their social unit, the more they try to exit it. Voice creates loyalty. This simple formula can be applied to explain the relations between individuals and social units, from marriage where the partner who has no voice may exit to citizenship where lack of voice in authoritarian societies leads to emigration. It also explains declines in memberships in civil organizations and firms that do not give voice to their members or customers. The emigrants who head first for the exits are also the ones who would have been most vociferous in pressing for reform. Authoritarian regimes which do not want to reform encourage exit.

Voiceは一定度機能していると言えるだろうが、Exitは機能していると言えるのだろうか。ひいては領土に基づく国民国家体制でExitを機能することは不可能なのではなかろうか。Tuckerは次のようにいう。

exit from all political associations in a world of territorial sovereign states is difficult and expensive even when possible. Only a small, often privileged, minority is able to exit. Voice, the ability to influence the management of the state, has a wide range of models within a democracy. As Hirschman analyzed, when the quality of service of an organization like a state deteriorates, managers are under pressure to improve it when faced with a massive exit of their customers. They can also attempt to dissuade exit by branding it “desertion, defection and treason,” or in politics, secessionism. Alternatively, they may be forced to listen to the voice of the disgruntled customers. But if there is no exit option, or it is difficult or expensive, there is no incentive for managers to improve service or give voice (democracy) to their customers.

Exitは本来「顧客の大規模な撤退に直面した場合、それを改善する圧力がかかる(pressure to improve it when faced with a massive exit of their customers)」ように自浄作用として機能する。ただ「Only a small, often privileged, minority is able to exit」とあるように現行の国民国家システムでは、ごく一部の特権階級に許されたものでしかなくExitたりえないのである。つまり「撤退の選択肢がない、あるいは困難である、あるいは費用がかかるのであれば、経営者がサービスを改善したり、顧客のVoice（民主主義）を代弁したりするインセンティブはない(there is no exit option, or it is difficult or expensive, there is no incentive for managers to improve service or give voice (democracy) to their customers.)」のだ。そこでTuckerは次のように結論づける

情報技術によって可能となるパナキズム

The growing capacity of the Internet to transmit information, and of computers to process it, reduce the cost and difficulties of running global states. Computers can fulfill some of the traditional functions of government to the extent that they coincide with the operations of credit card and insurance companies; they collect and distribute resources according to a contract. The latest innovations allow computers to enforce contracts through decentralized contracts and issue currency and set monetary policy through cryptocurrencies. For example, Estonia has been at the forefront of the digitalization of government that allows it to be as exterritorial as the internet. Estonia offers anybody in the world the option of becoming an Estonian “e-resident.” In return for paying taxes to Estonia, its e-residents can register their companies there and execute contracts through e-signatures according to Estonian and EU laws and regulations. Estonia pioneered the digitalization of government whereby much of the interaction between citizens and the state is electronic and so can take place anywhere. Two innovations facilitate this process: e-signatures that are safer than ink on paper and electronic identity cards. Estonia, a country of little more than a million residents, expects to have a ten-fold e-residency. Whether or not ten million global citizens become virtual residents of Estonia is not as important as the ability through computerization to increase exponentially the number of citizens without increasing significantly the number of government employees.

The rise of virtual social networks like Facebook, Linkedin, Academia.edu and so on, has led Silicon Valley academic and venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan to suggest that political communities are losing their geographical characteristics and migrating to “the cloud,” to storage in computer servers spread all over the globe without any particular geographic location, just like states can be. The relevant distance between people is not geographical anymore, but geodesic, the shortest social line on a social network between people. Cloud formations can lead later to geographical face to face proximity. “Emigrants would be moving within or between nation states to become part of a community, not to strike out on their own… Unlike so-called secessionists, the specific site of physical concentration would be a matter of convenience, not passion; the geography incidental and not worth fighting over. Today, one of the first and largest international reverse diasporas has assembled in Silicon Valley, drawn by the internet to the cloud capital of technology; in fact, an incredible 64% of the Valley’s scientists and engineers hail from outside the U.S., with 43.9% of its technology companies founded by emigrants.” Srinivasan outlined the political implications of the new technologies: “as cloud formations take physical shape at steadily greater scales and durations, it shall become ever more feasible to create a new nation of emigrants.” Srinivasan approached the idea of de-territorializing the state but did not quite cross the threshold. Seasteading, the creation of floating towns off the territorial waters of California, is a recent attempt to create new states with freer entry and exit. If creative political entrepreneurs could not find a territory on earth, they could move to the sea and prosper there, away from any sovereign limits on immigration, labor and trade. However, in addition to technical material issues, such communities would be territorial rather than global. Without a military, they would be easy targets for nation states who could occupy them merely by blocking the shipping lanes that would be their lifeline. The cause of such action can be anything from drug-trafficking to alleged tax evasion. Panarchy offers all the benefits of such new states, without having to move anywhere, let alone to the sea or to Mars, ideas that even if technologically feasible and affordable only reiterate the old model of the sovereign territorial state, instead of creating a new and improved model of the state – the state 2.0.