22
" government must draw all its resources from the society over which it rules. When a governmentally controlled society takes defensive action against an aggression by a foreign power, where does it get the resources necessary to take that action? The men who fight are private individuals, usually conscripted into government service. The armaments are produced by private individuals working at their jobs. The money to pay for these armaments and the pittance doled out to the conscripts, as well as the money to pay the salaries of that small minority comprising the other members of the armed forces, is confiscated from private individuals by means of taxation. Government’s only contribution is to organize the whole effort by the use of force—the force of the draft, taxation, and other, more minor coercions, such as rationing, wage and price ceilings, travel restrictions, etc. So, to maintain that government is necessary to defend a society from foreign aggression is to maintain that it is necessary to use domestic aggression against the citizens in order to protect them from foreign aggression. "
― , The Market for Liberty
23
" It is foolish to suppose that men would not organize to defend themselves, and do so very effectively, if they were not forced to. Men are not so blind that they can’t grasp the value of freedom, nor so indifferent to life that they will not defend their values. Nor are they so stupid that they need politicians, bureaucrats, and Pentagon generals to tell them how to organize and what to do. The freer people are, the more efficiently they will perform. This being true, a free-market system of defense against foreign aggression can be expected to be very effective, in contrast to a governmental system of comparable size, resources, and maturity. "
― , The Market for Liberty
28
" Those who doubt that “the private sector” of the economy could sustain the expense of a free enterprise defense system would do well to consider two facts. First, “the public sector” gets its money from the same source as does “the private sector”—the wealth produced by individuals. The difference is that “the public sector” takes this wealth by force (which is legal robbery)—but it does not thereby have access to a larger pool of resources. On the contrary, by draining the economy by taxation and hobbling it with restrictions, the government actually diminishes the total supply of available resources. Second, government, because of what it is, makes defense far more expensive than it ought to be. The gross inefficiency and waste common to a coercive monopoly, which gathers its revenues by force and fears no competition, skyrocket costs. Furthermore, the insatiable desire of politicians and bureaucrats to exercise power in every remote corner of the world multiplies expensive armies, whose main effect is to commit aggressions and provoke wars. The question is not whether “the private sector” can afford the cost of defending individuals but how much longer individuals can afford the fearsome and dangerous cost of coerced governmental “defense” (which is, in reality, defense of the government, for the government ... by the citizens). "
― , The Market for Liberty
30
" A major portion of the cost of defense against foreign aggression in a laissez-faire society would be borne originally by business and industry, as owners of industrial plants obviously have a much greater investment to defend than do owners of little houses in suburbia. If there were any real threat of aggression by a foreign power, businessmen would all be strongly motivated to buy insurance against that aggression, for the same reason that they buy fire insurance, even though they could save money in the short run by not doing so. An interesting result of this fact is that the cost of defense would ultimately tend to be spread among the whole population, since defense costs, along with overhead and other such costs, would have to be included in the prices paid for goods by consumers. So, the concern that “free riders” might get along without paying for their own defense by parasitically depending on the defenses paid for by their neighbors is groundless. It is based on a misconception of how the free-market system would operate. The role of business and industry as major consumers of foreign-aggression insurance would operate to unify the free area in the face of any aggression. An auto plant in Michigan, for example, might well have a vital source of raw materials in Montana, a parts plant in Ontario, a branch plant in California, warehouses in Texas, and outlets all over North America. Every one of these facilities is important to some degree to the management of that Michigan factory, so it will want to have them defended, each to the extent of its importance. Add to this the concern of the owners and managers of these facilities for their own businesses and for all the other businesses on which they, in turn, depend, and a vast, multiple network of interlocking defense systems emerges. The involvement of the insurance companies, with their diversified financial holdings and their far-flung markets would immeasurably strengthen this defensive network. Such a multiple network of interlocking defense systems is a far cry from the common but erroneous picture of small cities, businesses, and individuals, unprotected by a government, falling one by one before an advancing enemy horde. "
― , The Market for Liberty