UPDATED: Burma, Chevron and Total: If I were on a jury…
As you’re no doubt aware, the Burmese state has been bloodily cracking down on popular unrest — massacring pacifist monks, dragging people out of their homes in the middle of the night and so forth.
What you might not be aware of is that oil companies Chevron and Total are business partners with the Burmese state. These enterprises are complicit in propping up a tyrannical regime. Agorists recognize that, like most of the corporate dominated “white market” economy, the source of their wealth is not really production and exchange but subsidies, sweetheart deals and generally cozy relationships with the bandit gangs more commonly referred to as “governments”.
“… if you wish to know how libertarians regard the State and any of its acts, simply think of the State as a criminal band…” — Murray Rothbard
As one man alone with few resources, there is little or nothing that I can do about the situation in Burma directly. I can, however, tell the truth as I see it and try to act accordingly.
Chevron and Total are complicit in the atrocities in Burma via their relationship with the Burmese government. This constitutes an active disregard for the rights of the Burmese, rather than the merely apathetic passive disregard of the average person who feels to overwhelmed with the challenges of day to day life to pay attention to such things and is not directly involved in the first place. Chevron and Total, by means of their business partnership with the Burmese government ARE involved.
It is my opinion that this active disregard rises to a level sufficient to nullify corporate property claims, at the very least until such time as Chevron and Total sever all ties with the Burmese government.
As Samuel Edward Konkin III noted:
“Regular, repeated patterns of aggression make one a habitual criminal  a statist (or ‘pure statist’). These people earn no wealth and have no property. Their loot is forfeit to revolutionary agorists as agents of the victims. The pure statist subclass includes all political officeholders, police, military, civil service, grantholders and subsidy receivers. There is a special subclass of the pure statists who not only accept plunder and enforce or maintain the machinery of the State but actually direct and control it. In ‘socialist’ countries, these are the top officeholders of the governing political party who usually (though not always) have top government offices. In the ‘capitalist’ countries, these super-statists seldom appear in government positions, preferring to control directly the wealth of their state-interfaced corporations, usually banks, energy monopolists and army suppliers.
If I were on a jury, as a matter of moral conscience I could not vote to convict anyone of a property crime involving purported property of Chevron or Total — from petty shoplifting through multi-billion dollar embezzlement and including destruction of property where no egregious risk to others was created by the destructive act.
If you feel the same way, feel free to use the Digg button up at the top of this post.
UPDATE: For a full list of companies supporting the Burmese state, click here.
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[...] Za: Brad Spangler [...]
Brad,
Good post. As I’ve contended on the LeftLibertarian2 email list, I think the case against Total and Unocal (now Chevron) is even more damming than you make it out to be, given that the Burmese government was hired by the companies explicitly for the purpose of ‘protection’ and assistance in the construction of the pipeline. We are ‘lucky’ enough to have, because of the efforts of EarthRights International, an account of the horrors committed against the people of Myanmar by the military, on behalf of Total and Unocal for the Yadana pipeline project.
A lot of important factual information, culled primarily from first-hand accounts of the survivors of the military terror, is in EarthRight’s legal complaint against Unocal on behalf of several Myanmar nationals. The complaint can be accessed online at http://www.earthrights.org/files/Legal%20Docs/Unocal/statecomplaint2003.pdf
The general facts start on page 10, and after that come some of the specific stories from the survivors. Every time I read it it brings tears to my eyes and I am overcome with anger.
- John
Brad proposes a very interesting approach to corporate-fascist-statist companies. As long as no one gets hurt physically, their assets would be fair game. Stealing from bullies and thugs would seem to be retaliatory force. Stealing from those who hire bullies and thugs would also seem to be retaliatory force.
However, there is clearly plenty of room for abuse in such a system. I think back to the olden days of letters of marque and reprisal. What Brad is proposing is basically reprisal.
Chevron and Total hire thugs to protect their pipeline in Burma. Said thugs become the government and rename the place Myanmar, bathing every day in gallons of blood shed by their victims. So, a letter of reprisal is issued which anyone may use in justifying theft of property from Chevron or Total.
Issued by whom? The common law tradition is a grand jury to investigate whether a crime has occurred. So, twelve to twenty-four persons would meet to evaluate such matters and determine whether there is evidence enough to indict.
I would argue that Condorcet’s jury theory applies. If we set the odds of each member of the grand jury making a correct choice at 50/50 and we increase the number of jurors, we are more likely to get a correct choice. One should be careful of individuals taking on this power, as the chances are they won’t be right even 50% of the time.
I wonder if the Common Economic Protocols might cover cases of this nature. Or be revised to do so.
[...] = ”; digg_topic = ”; Powered by Gregarious (42)PlanetaryJim had the following comment on my recent post regarding the situation in Burma and the complicity of major corporations like Chevron and Total. It deserved a thoughtful response [...]
[...] Chevron followup, part two’; digg_bodytext = ”; digg_topic = ”; Powered by Gregarious (42)My recent post on Burma and Chevron brought another critique, in addition to the comment from PlanetaryJim and my response to [...]