Suppose that Gazans, the residents of Gaza, were called Hamassians, from the name of the organization, Hamas, that rules over them. Strangely, that’s the way most people in the world are labeled and speak of themselves: Italians are governed by ”Italy,” the French (les Français) by “France,” the Canadians by “Canada.” The same ambiguity exists between the Israelis and “Israel.” In common parlance, “the U.S.” means both the government and “its” people, although fortunately “Americans” is a substitute that suggests some difference. Fortunately, too, the inhabitants of the UK are not called “Ukeans.”
In The Fatal Conceit, Friedrich Hayek wrote about “our poisoned language.” One of the worst poisons may be the collectivist bias whereby the country label is used for both its inhabitants and its state.
If residents of Gaza were called Hamassians, it would be much more difficult to distinguish them, analytically and morally, from their thuggish rulers. It would be more difficult to forget that whatever the proportion of “Hamassians” who support in some way the local tyrant, some Gazans are more its prisoners or internal hostages and don’t deserve any collective punishment on its behalf. If they are used as human shields by their own tyrant, of course, it is not the fault of an enemy waging a just war tantamount to self-defense—but the theoretical difference between that and a collective punishment must still be maintained. Ideas and ideals matter; or at least, we should hope so.
Even in the best case, there exists a certain distance between individuals and “their” government or state. I interpret James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock’s seminal book The Calculus of Consent as implying that the state is, in such a best case, both us and non-us. A larger distance exists in a Nozickian setup in the context of Anthony de Jasay’s “Capitalist State.” If a free market for security were possible as Gustave de Molinari first envisioned it and contemporary anarcho-capitalists argue for (see, among others, Mike Huemer and former EconLog blogger Bryan Caplan), the distance would be like between Pinkerton and its customers.
These reflections were partly inspired by a declaration of president Joe Biden (“Israel ‘Preparing Ground Invasion’ of Gaza, Says Netanyahu,” Financial Times, October 25, 2023):
Biden also added that Hamas “does not represent the vast majority of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip or anywhere else”.
This looks like an improvement over how a large number of people seem to think, but the distance between the state and its citizens or subjects has relatively little to do with some numerical majority. Joe Biden has certainly never read Hayek, Buchanan, Tullock, Nozick, de Jasay, Huemer, Kaplan, or EconLog. I don’t think he would understand anyway, and I conjecture that even a moderate-classical liberal—like, say, John Stuart Mill—would unambiguously disavow him. One common denominator of any liberal theory must be that, a priori, all individuals are assumed to have the same basic dignity, whether they are part of some political majority or not (Buchanan and Tullock propose a strong defense of this theory).
Even if positive and normative analysis must be distinguished, economics has the benefit of providing a good theoretical background to understand these ideas.
READER COMMENTS
David Seltzer
Oct 27 2023 at 2:42pm
Pierre: Some years ago, many in fact, a fellow cheder student asked our rabbi why each person is worthy. His answer, consistent “with all individuals are assumed to have the same basic dignity,” was “The almighty parcels dignity to each individual in equal measure.” Profound in its immutability and brevity.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 27 2023 at 6:05pm
David: It is often argued that the judeo-Christian tradition (perhaps more the Christian part, at least from what I know) has been a big contributor to the Western conception of individual dignity and liberty. Hayek, who was an agnostic, believed that moral rules of religion had played an important role in the development of a free society. Buchanan, who was an atheist, wrote, a bit more critically, in The Calculus of Consent (with Gordon Tullock):
My knowledge of these topics is limited.
Mactoul
Oct 28 2023 at 12:55am
As you grant the just war and self-defense to the state of Israel, it isn’t clear what peculiar contribution does the liberal theory makes in this situation.
” Collective punishment ” that you decry as impermissible, it is in the eye of beholder. Pro -Palestinians are invoking collective punishment precisely those actions you are calling just self-defense. How to decide?
Jose Pablo
Oct 28 2023 at 8:47am
As it is the case with so many “thorny” issues, it is all about “who” (the “justices” manning the Court competent to decide on these issues), is entitled to decide (based on the existing legal framework), what is “righteous self-defense” and what is “collective punishment”.
I am afraid that, objectively, the “case” is increasingly looking unfavorable to Israel.
https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/10/27/marc-weller-on-what-international-law-has-to-say-about-the-israel-hamas-conflict
Monte
Oct 28 2023 at 3:30am
A rare declaration of truth from our president. The majority of Gazans support the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Lion’s Den, both terrorist organizations. And sadly, most Gazans are opposed to establishing a permanent peace with Israel and desire neither a 1- or 2-state solution. They wish to reclaim all of historic Palestine. So where is a bargaining chip to be found?
American political scientist and Middle East expert, Ian Lustick, suggests one option is for Israel to not retaliate, relinquish Gaza to the U.N. “and assist it—with Israeli reparations, Gulf money, and international security assistance—toward the best future it can achieve.” To what end, I wonder?
I fear Ludwig Von Mises was right when he cautioned, in Planning for Freedom, that:
Jose Pablo
Oct 28 2023 at 9:09am
The majority of Gazans support the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Lion’s Den, both terrorist organizations
What does “support” mean in this sentence?
How many different degrees / meanings of “support” do you need to pack together to arrive at the “majority of Gazans” in the “collective subject” of your sentence?
After all this “packaging”, does “support” keep any meaning useful enough to derive from it a sensible course of action?
How many Irish people supported the “Old IRA” back in 1920?
Does any possible answer to the previous question justify the Bloody Sunday?
Monte
Oct 28 2023 at 12:02pm
Jose,
For context (adapted from FIKRA Forum Brief – Polls Show Majority of Gazans Were Against Breaking Ceasefire)
Against this backdrop, it appears self evident (when these organizations reject all solutions other than the military destruction of Israel) that the only “sensible course of action” for Israel to pursue is war or mass exodus. Which do you recommend?
The worst casualty of war is innocence.
Jose Pablo
Oct 28 2023 at 12:50pm
Which do you recommend?
I recommend a course of action that avoids the killing of innocent people. You are guilty of nothing, (as in you don’t deserve to die or being displaced from your home), because what some 1% of the people living in your city answered to a telephone poll.
Among many other reasons because this is the best way of minimizing the number of innocent Israelis killed in the future.
Monte
Oct 28 2023 at 2:51pm
This is what we all prefer. The question is how do propose to accomplish it under the present circumstances?
Where did you see that this poll represents only 1% of the people?
Monte
Oct 28 2023 at 9:01pm
Based on the following, I can see where you may have assumed 1%:
Even so, I would argue it represents a fairly accurate consensus of opinion.
The only solution is for Israel to cease hostilities, relinquish its land, and relocate out of the Middle East. Even if this were to happen, their persecution would continue no matter where they settled. The only thing I’ve ever read that seems to explain this madness is the Bible.
Hazel Meade
Nov 2 2023 at 2:55pm
This really sums it up.
The thing with the Palestinians is if you listen to what they say closely, when they speak of living under occupation, they aren’t talking about the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. They are talking about the existence of the state of Israel. To them, Israel’s existence is the “occupation of Palestine”. They aren’t willing to accept the right of the Jewish people to a homeland, and their ultimate goal remains the recovery of ALL Palestinian lands for themselves. Every peace deal has been “spiked” by the insistence on things like the right of return for all Palestinians refugees, and their descendants, to their original homes in Israel, for instance. And if you talk of a “two-state solution” they will first say they want the 1967 borders, and then revise their position the 1948 borders, and then the 1947 UN partition, and then admit they don’t even want a two state solution. They say they want a “one-state solution” where all the Palestinians are just immediately made citizens of Israel with equal rights, which is, effectively, the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state, which the Israelis are not going to accept, and justly, *should not* accept, given the obvious threat to their lives it would represent.
Ironically, the reason that the state of Israel was declared in 1948 in the first place is because the Palestinian Arabs rejected the UN partition proposal. Had they accepted that partition, the state of Israel would be much smaller and they would have their own state today. But they have not learned a single lesson from that. To this day, they still refuse to accept *any* Israeli state, even though with each conflict it costs them more territory.
Jose Pablo
Oct 28 2023 at 9:19am
The same ambiguity exists between the Israelis and “Israel.”
Individual Israelis have a lot of different ways of looking at this conflict.
https://www.economist.com/1843/2023/10/26/the-war-schizophrenia-of-israels-peaceniks
MarkW
Oct 29 2023 at 6:20am
After the invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany, not on the Nazi party. Similarly, after Pearl Harbor, the US declared war on Japan, not the Japanese ruling party (how many people even know who the ruling party was in that case?) In the same vein, the attack on Israel was an act of war by Gaza, and engaging in war against Gaza in response is appropriate, even though we know that, in all of these cases, the ruling parties of the states did not enjoy unanimous support among the citizenry. Of course, in waging war, it is imperative to avoid civilian casualties as far as possible. But in each of these cases, there was/is good reason to wage war until victory is achieved.
Pierre Lemieux
Oct 29 2023 at 11:25am
MarkW: It is indeed against the collectivist way (“our poisoned language”) of declaring war on women, children, and non-enemy individuals that I am arguing against.
MarkW
Oct 30 2023 at 5:49am
I’m afraid that this is not a new insight. People were perfectly aware at the time that not all or even most Germans were Nazis. Many of them could properly have been considered ‘hostages’ of the insane, violent people who had taken over their country — including many German soldiers who were not Nazis and would not have decided to invade Poland of their own volition. Twas ever thus. Reportedly, many of the Russian soldiers involved in the initial invasion of Ukraine were told they were on a training missing and did not even know they were IN Ukraine. That’s truly tragic, but it doesn’t mean that Ukranian forces were wrong to shoot back at them.
Over millenia of history since the times of ghastly genocidal warfare of the Bronze Age, humans have evolved SOME rules of warfare to try to address these concerns. This include rules against atrocities against non-combatants, rules against summary torture and execution of captured enemy soldiers, and requirements that combatants wear uniforms so that the two can be distinguished. Of course these rules are not always observed, but still they have made a big difference in the ways wars are conducted. But here we have Hamas that, like ISIS, intentionally, flagrantly, proudly violated all of these norms to the greatest extent possible. They targeted civilians preferentially (as softer targets), brutalized and killed them in the most cruel ways, and published videos of their atrocities for all to see. They do not wear uniforms and return to hide amongst their own civilian population hoping that their own civilians will be killed in Israeli attacks so that their deaths can be used for internal and external propaganda purposes.
So it is a nearly impossible situation that Israel finds itself in. I do not have a good solution, nor seemingly does anybody else. But it’s not obvious to me that making the distinction between Gazans and ‘Hamasians’ is going to help us see a solution more clearly.
Daniel Kuehn
Oct 31 2023 at 2:58pm
What?
Italy, France, the U.S., etc. are words for the territory. States generally are associated with territories and carry similar names but these are not names for states or rulers (though they may be shorthand for states they are definitely not shorthand for rulers). Israel is the territory. The government of Israel is the state, and Likud is the ruler right now. The government of Gaza is either the State of Palestine, Palestinian Authority, or the Hamas government in Gaza depending on how you want to look at it and the ruler is definitely Hamas. But calling them Hamassians would be like calling Israelis Likudians or calling Americans Democratians. And it would change whenever elections (or fate, where elections are not held) change.
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