Murphy 1, Shoguns 0
Regarding my recent debate on the Tom Woods Show with Todd Lewis–regarding private defense–I got the following email (permission to reprint):
Dr. Murphy,
Following your recent debate with Todd Lewis I felt motivated to write the following based on my experience of living in Japan and studying its martial history for over 24 years.
Best regards,
—
Tim Haffner
Why Japan’s Sengoku period does not support monopoly security provision and actually makes the case for the private production of defense:
1. Feudal Japan was a peasant-based agrarian economy overseen by samurai landlords enforcing law and securing territory, ostensibly at least, on behalf of the emperor. Controlling land and the agriculture products yielded from the peasant farmers was essential to power. Taxation and trade were denominated in units of rice bushels. Modes of production, means of commerce, and centers of power have changed significantly since that time. One must be careful and selective when comparing pre-industrial revolution societies with modern theories of political-economy.
2. Japanese people believed the emperor was the living descendant of the Sun Goddess and the unitary source of justice and prosperity. Samurai were fighting amongst each other to be the instrument of his law and reign, implementing the Mandate Of Heaven (a term borrowed from the tyrannical rule in China, see McCaffrey’s 08/22/17 article). The existence of, and belief in, this central authority is what kept up the “game of thrones” with various factions within the court nobility employing their personally hired samurai war band to jockey for position, influence, and income.
3. Samurai started as tax collectors and territorial administrators, land-lording over the peasant farmers in the provinces, on behalf of and in the private employment of, competing nobles within the emperor’s court. An excess of male heirs within the imperial family, and dwindling financial resources, led to many royals renouncing their claims so as to take up positions in the countryside. It was better to be a big fish in a small pond, than fight for scraps in the capital. These dispossessed princes-cum-warriors also served the interests of influential court nobles who were looking to increase their holdings in the countryside while staying close to the flagpole. Again, private alliances serving private interests, yet acting on behalf of state power.
4. Samurai clans operated as corporate bodies that formed alliances for mutual security and specific, central court sanctioned, police actions. The first “Shogun” was a temporary post established to fight back the native populations that were attacking frontier settlements. It was only after the central court’s corruption and failure to impartially render justice in inheritance and land disputes that samurai, such as Taira no Masakado, started rebelling. In the words of JayZ: “The industry is shady, you need to be taking over”. Appealing to a monopolist led to diminished qualities of justice, and attendant dissatisfaction by those with the means to do something about it that started the various periods of civil war.
5. Unification brought the invasion of Korea to keep the samurai alliances occupied and financially depleted while Toyotomi Hideyoshi solidified control over the island nation. Rather than pacifying Japan, monopoly only created negative externalities for Japan’s neighbors. Further, Hideyoshi implemented a “sword hunt” to disarm the population, a census that later tied peasants to the land such that they could not move without permission, and locked people into one of four classes that would stifle economic mobility. Classic moves among all tyrants.
6. When power later passed, violently at the battle of Sekigahara, to the Tokugawa Shoguns, keeping the samurai financially depleted took the form of pre-occupation with ceremonies, bureaucratic formalities, and maintaining alternate residences between the localities and the capital. Wasteful spending mandated by government on useless endeavors is a typical theme in monopoly states. All of which impoverishes the people supporting this kind of wasteful security system.
7. The utility of having aristocratic warriors went down while the costs continually increased. The number of warrior-bureaucrats expanded while actual security providers went down (a bloated tooth to tail ratio). These positions would have been shed, leaving the surplus of labor available for productive activities had the classes not been solidified and people been free to change vocations. Many samurai actually forgot their martial skills and neglected training for combat once accustomed to bureaucratic life and earning their livings through sycophancy. Others, led desperate lives trying to earn money covertly or as bandits and mercenaries once dismissed from service. Tales of “ronin” are notorious for depicting the negative side of “anarchy” under Tokugawa rule.
8. The Tokugawa Shogunate is better viewed as a federal structure that assumed control of external defense and limited dispute resolution, in the name of the emperor, while the internal workings of the provinces and domains were left to the various clans. Once fulfilling its obligation to the Tokugawa regime, a province was free to set its own tax rates, develop its own industries, and manage its affairs as it saw fit. Provinces were actually referred to with the same terms, “kuni”, as those used for foreign nations, including China and Korea.
9. The Tokugawa regime immediately began spending beyond its means, running deficits, and debasing the currency. The quality of life for the average Japanese peasant remained impoverished and displaced samurai turned to crime when they lost employment yet could not pursue work outside of their designated class.
10. The supposed peace brought about by the Tokugawa Shoguns is rightly viewed as the beginning of the end of innovation for Japan as the country was closed off from trade, new ideas, and technologies. This ultimately made Japan vulnerable to invasion, colonialism, and military weakness when Western Imperialism made it to Asia in the 1840’s. Japan could not defend its coast from foreign invaders or even negotiate trade relations with external powers because of the martial decrepitude festering in the Tokugawa bureaucracy that had been wrongly trusted with external security.
11. Even internally the quality and scope of security and justice diminished under monopoly rule under the Tokugawa. For instance, and even within the same province as the Tokugawa seat of power (what is now Tokyo) the farmer population just a few miles outside of the capital were encouraged (despite the class restrictions) to take up the martial arts because resources were unavailable to police the rural areas.
12. In 1853, when American Black Ships under Commodore Perry forced Japan into opening trade relations with the West, the military weakness of the Tokugawa became apparent and the regime began a slow motion implosion while trying to hold its position. From a security standpoint, each clan had to fend for itself and many implemented “minpeitai” militia units to augment the security needs the samurai were unable to provide.
13. Several forward thinking samurai started their own private schools of Western learning and military science. Many called for free trade as a means of acquiring the wealth necessary to develop weaponry sufficient to prevent falling prey to colonial powers like what they were witnessing in China. One samurai, Sakamoto Ryoma, had his own private navy and specialized in smuggling weaponry into the hands of other samurai organized private militia, aimed at overthrowing the inept Tokugawa regime while expelling foreign colonizers. So while the bureaucracy bickered amongst itself, innovative warrior-entrepreneurs were taking action.
14. When the Western backed Imperial forces chased these samurai visionaries to the furthest reaches of the land, they tried to establish an autonomous republic, which would still swear allegiance to the emperor, and held Japan’s first ever popular election. Of course this had to be crushed.
15. Solidifying control under the restored imperial structure and, mirroring what Toyotomi did once achieving hegemony, led to external invasions, the creation of the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to mimic Western colonialism, and an eventual conflict from which Japan has yet to recover. (The people have been disarmed, emasculated, and still live under foreign occupation after all).
Summary: Rather than using Japan’s Warring States period as an example of why compulsory monopoly is necessary for national defense it should rightly be viewed as a warning. Despite the exorbitant costs heaped upon the actual productive segments of the population, paying for a bloated and incompetent bureaucracy did not yield the security promised and eventually every person and territory had to make their own arrangements.
Satisfying the peoples’ security needs eventually reverted back to a mixture of self-help, defensive alliances, and entrepreneurial services anyway, so why not organize for it?
If you consider enslavement to be a form of “private defense.” Oh, wait, you probably do. Paying people to “defend” you by not hurting you as much as they would otherwise, right?
Further research will be required to get to the bottom of this, but according to Wikipedia at least, Toyotomi Hideyoshi actually banned some forced of slavery, which would make him less of a tyrant than his predecessors.
correction: some forms of slavery
“Mandate Of Heaven (a term borrowed from the tyrannical rule in China”
OK, Haffner doesn’t know what he is talking about. He can safely be ignored.
Very similar to what happened with King John and the Magna Carta where you have a King who is sufficiently hopeless, that the nobility rise up and demand at least some of the central authority is ceded. The Japanese maintain appearances a lot more than “barbarian” blunt talking Westerners were ever willing to do, but the principle is the same.
But wait! This means that central powers do not have a monopoly, at best they have something provisionally offered to them until such time as they mess it up. Almost voluntary cooperation if I should be so bold as to say so.
If he happens to be listening I’d be interested to know what Tim Haffner has to say about the history of Ninjitsu in the context of the power of the Shogun samurai. A true peasant martial tradition if ever there was one, and something that IMHO will be increasingly relevant in the modern world.
That deserves a lot of qualification. Western technologists had developed muskets, cannon and later rifles and these simple tools changed the entire nature of warfare. A handful of peasants with perhaps 6 months training and cheap mass produced rifles can cut down a samurai with a high quality sword and armour plus 20 years training, and not even need to put themselves personally at risk if they have a good sniping position. You can very well understand why people with a vested interest would be mightily pissed about the unfairness of this.
Ultimately the structure of human civilization is strongly influenced by military tradition and technology is part of that. Japan wanted to resist the change, eventually they failed.
There’s more though. In Melbourne a few days ago someone drive a 4WD through a crowd of pedestrians crossing the road during the popular Christmas shopping period, there’s been quite a bit of this lately. Needless to say, people are not happy, our government wants to pretend nothing is happening but no one believes them. While telling us this had “unrelated to terrorism” the government quietly issued police with sub-machine guns, you know as one of those “just in case” precautionary procedures.
Technology is changing the world. When it happens with smart phones and video games we can all have a chuckle about those stick-in-the-muds who don’t want to go along. When it happens with life and death on the street, well different story… but really the same story.