Humans want the resources of other humans. I want the food that the supermarket owns so that I can eat it. Before buying it, I wanted the house that I now own. And before that, someone wanted to build a house on that plot of land, which was owned by someone else first. Most of the activities we engage in during our lifetime revolve around extracting something from someone else. There are two basic modalities to getting the resources of someone else. The first, the simplest, and the one that has dominated the majority of human history, is force. Conquer people, kill them, beat them up and take their stuff, force them into slavery and make them do your work. It’s a somewhat effective strategy. This can also be more subtle, by using coercive and fraudulent methods to trick people into giving you their resources. Let’s call this modality the looter approach. The second is trade. In the world of trade, I can only extract resources from someone else when they willingly give them to me in exchange for something else of value. This can be barter of value for value, payment in money, built-up goodwill, favors, charity (exchanging resources for the benefit you receive for helping someone else), and more. In order to participate in this modality, you need to create your own valuable resources that other people want to trade for. Let’s call this the producer approach. The producer approach is better for society in every conceivable way. The looter approach causes unnecessary destruction, pushes production into ventures that don’t directly help anyone (like making more weapons), and rewards people for their ability to inflict harm. By contrast, the producer approach rewards the ability to meet the needs of others and causes resources to end up in the hands of those who value them the most. Looter philosophy is rooted in the concept of the zero sum game, the mistaken belief that I can only have more if someone else has less. By contrast, the producer philosophy correctly identifies the fact that we can *all* end up better by producing more goods in more efficient ways. We live in our modern world of relatively widespread luxury because producers have made technological leaps—for their own self-serving motives—that have improved everyone’s ability to produce more goods going forward. Think of the steam engine, electricity, computing power, and more. # A producer-only world It would be wonderful to live in a world in which there are no looters. We all produce, we all trade, everyone receives more value than they give, and there is no wasted energy or destruction from the use of force. Think about how wonderful it could be\! We wouldn’t need militaries, allowing a massive amount of productive capacity to be channeled into things that make everyone’s lives better. We wouldn’t need police. Not only would that free up more resources, but would remove the threat of improper use of force by the state against citizens. The list goes on and on. I believe many economists—especially Austrian economists—are cheering for that world. I agree with them on the cheering. It’s why things like Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs are so horrific in their eyes. Tariffs introduce an artificial barrier between nations, impeding trade, preventing the peaceful transfer of resources, and leading to a greater likelihood of armed conflict. There’s only one problem with this vision, and it’s also based in economics: game theory. # Game theory and looters Imagine I’m a farmer. I’m a great farmer, I have a large plot of land, I run my operations efficiently, and I produce huge amounts of food. I sell that food into the marketplace, and with that money I’m able to afford great resources from other people, who willingly trade them to me because they value the money more than their own resources. For example, how many T-shirts does the clothing manufacturer need? Instead of his 1,000th T-shirt, he’d rather sell it for $5 and buy some food. While I’m really great as a farmer, I’m not very good as a fighter. I have no weapons training, I keep no weapons on my property, and I dislike violence. And finally, there’s a strong, skilled, unethical person down the street. He could get a job with me on the farm. For back-breaking work 8 hours a day, I’ll pay him 5% of my harvest. Or, by contrast, he could act like the mafia, demand a “protection fee” of 20%, and either beat me up, beat up my family, or cause harm to my property, if I don’t pay it. In other words, he could be a producer and get 5% in exchange for hard work, or be a looter and get 20% in exchange for easy (and, likely for him, fun) work. As described, the game theoretic choice is clear. So how do we stop a producer world from devolving back into a looter world? # Deterrence There’s only one mechanism I’m aware of for this, and it’s deterrence. As the farmer, I made a mistake. I *should* get weapons training. I *should* keep weapons on my farm. I *should* be ready to defend myself and my property. Because if I don’t, game theory ultimately predicts that all trade will collapse, and society as we know it will crumble. I don’t necessarily have to have the power of deterrence myself. I could hire a private security company, once again allowing the producer world to work out well. I trade something of lesser value (some money) for something I value more (the protection afforded by private security). If I’m lucky, that security company will never need to do anything, because the mere *threat* of their presence is sufficient. And in modern society, we generally hope to rely on the government police force to provide this protection. There are easy ways to defeat the ability of deterrence to protect our way of life. The simplest is to defang it. Decriminalize violent and destructive acts, for example. Remove the consequences for bad, looter behavior, and you will incentivize looting. This is far from a theoretical discussion. We’ve seen the clear outcome in California, which has decriminalized theft under $950, resulting—in a completely predictable way—in more theft, stores closing, and an overall erosion of producer philosophy. And in California, this is even worse. Those who try to be their own deterrence, by arming themselves and protecting their rights, are often the targets of government force instead of the looters. I’m guessing this phrasing has now split my reading audience into three groups. Group A agrees wholly with what I’m saying. Group B believes what I’ve just written is pure evil and garbage. Group C initially disagreed with my statements, but has an open mind and is willing to consider a different paradigm. The next section is targeted at groups A and C. Group B: good luck with the broken world you’re advocating. # Global scale This concept of deterrence applies at a global scale too. I would love to live in a world where all nations exchange value for value and never use force against others. In fact, I believe the ultimate vision for this kind of a world ends with anarcho-capitalism (though I don’t know enough about the topic to be certain). There ends up being no need for any force against anyone else. It’s a beautiful vision for a unified world, where there are no borders, there is no destruction, there is only unity through trade. I love it. But game theory destroys this too. If the entire world disarmed, it would take just one person who thinks he can do better through looter tactics to destroy the system. The only way to defeat that is to have a realistic threat of force to disincentivize someone from acting like a looter. And this is the paradox. In order to live in our wonderful world of production, prosperity, health, and happiness, we always need to have our finger near enough to the trigger to respond to looters with force. I know of no other approach that allows production to happen. (And I am very interested in other theoretical solutions to this problem, if anyone wants to share reading material.) # Peace through strength This line of thinking leads to the concept of [peace through strength](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_through_strength). When those tempted to use violence see the overwhelming strength of their potential victims, they will be disincentivized to engage in violent behavior. It’s the story of the guy who wants to rob my farm. Or the roaming army in the ancient world that bypassed the well fortified walled city and attacked its unprotected neighbor. There are critics of this philosophy. As put by Andrew Bacevich, "'Peace through strength' easily enough becomes 'peace through war.'" I don’t disagree at all with that analysis, and it’s something we must remain vigilant against. But disarming is not the answer, as it will, of course, necessarily lead to the victory of those willing to use violence on others. In other words, my thesis here is that the threat of violence must be present to keep society civilized. But the cost of *using* that violence must be high enough that neither side is incentivized to initiate it. # Israel I’d been thinking of writing a blog post on this topic for a few months now, but finally decided to today. Israel just agreed to a hostage deal with Hamas. In exchange for the release of 33 hostages taken in the October 7 massacre, Israel will hand over 1,000 terrorists in Israeli prisons. I have all the sympathy in the world for the hostages and their families. I also have great sympathy for the Palestinian civilians who have been harmed, killed, displaced, and worse by this war. And I have empathy (as one of the victims) for all of the Israeli citizens who have lived under threat of rocket attacks, had our lives disrupted, and for those who have been killed by this war. War is hell, full stop. My message here is to those who have been pushing the lie of “peace through negotiations.” Or peace through capitulation. Or anything else. These tactics are the reason the war has continued. As long as the incentive structure makes initiating a war a positive, wars will continue to be initiated. Hamas has made its stance on the matter clear: it has sworn for the eradication of all Jews within the region, and considers civilian casualties on the Palestinian side not only acceptable, but advantageous.  I know that many people who criticize Israel and put pressure on us to stop the war in Gaza believe they are doing so for noble reasons. (For the record, I also believe many people have less altruistic reasons for their stance.) I know people like to point to the list of atrocities they believe Israel has committed. And, by contrast, the pro-Israel side is happy to respond with corresponding atrocities from the other side. I honestly believe this is all far beyond irrelevant. The only question people should be asking is: how do we disincentivize the continuation of hostilities? And hostage deals that result in the release of terrorists, allow “aid” to come in (which, if history is any indication, will be used to further the construction of tunnels and other sources for attack on Israel), and give Hamas an opportunity to rearm, only incentivize the continuation of the war. In other words, if you care about the innocent people on either side, you should be opposed to this kind of capitulation. Whatever you think about the morality of each side, more people will suffer with this approach. # Skin in the game It’s easy to say things like that when your life isn’t on the line. I also don’t think that matters much. Either the philosophical, political, and economic analysis is correct, or it isn’t. Nonetheless, I *do* have skin in the game here. I still live in a warzone. I am less than 15 kilometers from the Lebanese border. We’ve had Hezbollah tunnels reaching into our surrounding cities. My family had to lock ourselves inside when Hezbollah paratroopers had attempted to land in our city. My wife (Miriam) and I have discussed this situation at length, many times, over the course of this war. If I’m ever taken hostage, I hope the Israeli government bombs the hell out of wherever I am being held. I say this not only because I believe it is the right, just, moral, ethical, and strategically correct thing to do. I say this because I am selfish: * I would rather die than be tortured by our enemies. * I would rather die than be leveraged to make my family and country less safe. * I would rather die than live the rest of my life a shell of my former self, haunted not only by the likely torture inflicted on me, but by the guilt of the harm to others resulting from my spared life. I don’t know why this hostage deal went through now. I don’t know what pressures have been brought to bear on the leaders in Israel. I don’t know if they are good people trying to protect their citizens, nefarious power hungry cretins looking to abuse both the Israeli and Palestinian populace to stay in control, weak-willed toadies who do what they’re told by others, or simply stupid. But my own stance is clear. # But what about the Palestinians? I said it above, and I’ll say it again: I truly do feel horrible for the trauma that the Palestinian people are going through. Not for the active terrorists mind you, I feel no qualms about those raising arms against us being destroyed. But everyone else, even those who wish me and my fellow Israelis harm. (And, if polling is to be believed, that’s the majority of Palestinians.) I would much rather that they *not* be suffering now, and that eventually through earned trust on both sides, everyone’s lots are improved. But the framework being imposed by those who “love” peace isn’t allowing that to happen. Trust cannot be built when there’s a greater incentive to return to the use of force. I was strongly opposed to the 2005 disengagement from Gaza. But once it happened, it could have been one of those trust-building starting points. Instead, I saw many people justify further violence by Hamas—such as non-stop rocket attacks on the south of Israel—because Israel hadn’t done enough yet. Notice how fundamentally flawed this mentality is, just from an incentives standpoint\! Israel gives up control of land, something against its own overall interests and something desired by Palestinians, and is punished for it with increased violence against citizens. Hamas engaged in a brutal destruction of all of its opponents within the Palestinian population, launched attacks on Israel, and when Israel *did* respond with force, Israel was blamed for having not done enough to appease Hamas. I know people will want to complicate this story by bringing up the laundry list of past atrocities, of assigning negative motivations to Israel and its leaders, and a million other evasions that are used to avoid actually solving this conflict. Instead, I beg everyone to just use basic logic. The violence will continue as long as the violence gets results.