The Process of Peace

The easy response to violence is more violence. The old adage, fight fire with fire, attests to this mentality. This is the illiberal mentality. This is the interventionist mentality. This is the Anti-Capitalist Mentality. Tools that a liberal should use to disassemble this mentality are cooperation and peace.

For as long as syndicates of force, States, have existed they have responded to disputes with this mentality more than with diplomacy. The U.S. spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined on military expenditures. Even without knowledge of that which is not seen, and without the abolition of the State, these are misallocated resources. If even one fifth of these resources were given to the promotion of peace we would live in a more secure world. I do not advocate extra government spending for peace, but if the dollars have already been budgeted then the Institute for Peace is a preferable candidate to the U.S. Department of War (an Orwellian renaming).

Jesus of Nazareth, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi are renown for practicing non-violence in response to violence. Their illustrations of radical peace are inspirational. I am not a pacifist, but I do believe in exhausting channels of peace before resorting to violence in the form of self-defense. I mention self-defense, because it is only justifiable to use force if another party has initiated force against you. As owner of their body, an individual has the right to expel any invasions of their sovereign territory.

For an individual to act aggressively only in acts of self-defense is admirable. For a State to do so is anomalous. Aere perennius, would be an expansive voluntary association devoted to peace. www.antiwar.com and the liberty movement in general (TomWoods, LFB, DailyPaul, CircleBastiat, AdamKokesh) are pioneering my vision for a peaceful world. The Los Angeles Center for Civic Mediation is laying the groundwork for peace-building in schools and negotiations. My dream sees the results of these seeds. I have a dream, that one day, the planet will be comprised of a majority of peacemongers.

Voluntary exchange is what will lead to the increased production of peacemongers. Violence begetting violence is aided by the anti-capitalist mentality. The view that trade must bring about one winner and one loser. The perception of producers swindling and hornswoggling consumers out of their money. Voluntary exchange involves the trading of goods and services subjectively desired by individuals. Both parties A and B win. Unfettered capitalism brings about win-win exchanges as opposed to the zero-sum game that it is portrayed as allowing to occur. When governments, apparati of coercion, prevent peaceful exchanges cooperation is being stopped. Whether their reasoning comes from territorial disputes over imaginary and arbitrary borders or lobbying from domestic special interests, it is a violent strategy nonetheless. For a velvet revolution of voluntary exchange to happen, State barriers in the forms of tariffs, sanctions and embargos must be utterly repudiated.

Then humans, being the innovative creatures that they are, will increase their specialization through the division of labor. This cooperation leads to further satisfying of wants. All the while, communication between varied individuals will breed better understanding of different cultures. Using cooperation as a contagion the objective of spreading peace as a pathogen will be achieved.