My previous post was about pirates of the 17th-18th century Atlantic, which strikes me as the ultimate illustration of an anarcho-capitalist fantasy. In an era of colonialism, the sovereigns of Spain, Portugal, Holland and England looted and plundered with scant regard for any laws, and they were not reluctant to recruit contractors like the Dread Pirate Roberts. Earlier, Demetrius I Poliorcetes and Athenodorus established little empires in the Aegean; the Wokou were Japanese pirates who raided China in the 14th century; by the 16th century, these pirate bands had become preponderantly Chinese fugitives; the pirates were recruited by trading houses to target each other:

Lest I be accused of flogging a straw man, at least one anarcho-capitalist fantasy (Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand) features a heroic pirate, Ragnar Danneskjöld (or see Cliff Notes). We live in an era where mercenaries, for decades utilized but little discussed, have become a huge new force in the world. Mercenaries are not exactly the same thing as pirates, of course, and it seems odd to leap from the PMCs now employing tens of thousands in Iraq to Ragnar Danneskjöld and Wang Zhi. Yet all that is lacking is some medium through which the mercenaries can move, and the ability to act autonomously. That, and a dashing eyepatch.

ADDENDA (19 October 2005): Readers are urged to read this delightful essay on the
Temporararily Austonomous Zone (TAZ). Like much anarchist philosophy, it does talk a lot of rubbish ("the up-rising suggests the possibility of a movement outside and beyond the Hegelian spiral of that "progress" which is secretly nothing more than a vicious circle... A goodbye to that wretched parody of the karmic round, historical revolutionary futility. ...If History IS "Time," as it claims to be, then the uprising is a moment that springs up and out of Time, violates the "law" of History." Aside from the cavill that history cannot claim to be anything, readers are reminded that Hakim Bey is summarizing the point of view of others, one that is subtly different from his own.)

Hakim Bey would probably be horrified if he knew I were citing the TAZ as an example of private sector imperialism. He would probably be depressed if he knew what I thought of his political ideas (namely, what apostle of "freedom" has nothing but scorn for the entire achievement of humans over the last 20,000 years? If all human endeavor, save for something so remote from the author's experience as the lifestyle of a Polynesian Indian, is somehow a "skin disease," and if the author expects this to "collapse" in his lifetime, is his "anarchy" actually a form of totalitarianism"?). If one abandons any interest in Hakim Bey's chimerical obsession with order-free societies, or his uncomprehending admiration of Gabriele d'Annunzio's conquest of Fiume ("Yes, Mr. Hakim, there were people living in Rijeka before d'Annunzio took control of the town. Taking control of a town involves telling the locals you'll kill them if they don't do as you say. No, Rijeka is a Croatian city. Conquest of a non-Italian city for the glory of Italy is, you know, a bit on the coercive side."). Silly boy. Anarchy involves warfare and chaos; chaos, famine. That's the secret conspiracy that led to the USSR, not some monstrous criminal betrayal by the Bolsheviks. However:

Makhno's Ukraine and anarchist Spain were meant to have duration, and despite the exigencies of continual war both succeeded to a certain extent: not that they lasted a "long time," but they were successfully organized and could have persisted if not for outside aggression. Therefore, from among the experiments of the inter-War period I'll concentrate instead on the madcap Republic of Fiume, which is much less well known, and was not meant to endure. Gabriele D'Annunzio, Decadent poet, artist, musician, aesthete, womanizer, pioneer daredevil aeronautist, black magician, genius and cad, emerged from World War I as a hero with a small army at his beck and command: the "Arditi." At a loss for adventure, he decided to capture the city of Fiume from Yugoslavia and give it to Italy. After a necromantic ceremony with his mistress in a cemetery in Venice he set out to conquer Fiume, and succeeded without any trouble to speak of. But Italy turned down his generous offer; the Prime Minister called him a fool.

In a huff, D'Annunzio decided to declare independence and see how long he could get away with it. He and one of his anarchist friends wrote the Constitution, which declared music to be the central principle of the State. The Navy (made up of deserters and Milanese anarchist maritime unionists) named themselves the Uscochi, after the long- vanished pirates who once lived on local offshore islands and preyed on Venetian and Ottoman shipping. The modern Uscochi succeeded in some wild coups: several rich Italian merchant vessels suddenly gave the Republic a future: money in the coffers! Artists, bohemians, adventurers, anarchists... fugitives and Stateless refugees, homosexuals, military dandies... and crank reformers of every stripe (including Buddhists, Theosophists and Vedantists) began to show up at Fiume in droves. The party never stopped. Every morning D'Annunzio read poetry and manifestos from his balcony; every evening a concert, then fireworks. This made up the entire activity of the government. Eighteen months later, when the wine and money had run out and the Italian fleet finally showed up and lobbed a few shells at the Municipal Palace, no one had the energy to resist.