Maybe he'd launch immoral wars of aggression on multiple fronts and kill thousands of innocent people a day for the better part of a century.
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- Thread starter Napolean
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Maybe he'd launch immoral wars of aggression on multiple fronts and kill thousands of innocent people a day for the better part of a century.
One concise article summing up anarchy? That is an unreasonable request. To put that into perspective, would you take someone seriously who asked for one concise article summing up marketing given the problems a person might confront? Well, political philosophy and ethics are far more complex.
If you're willing to read, consider the following a starting point...
Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to Ten Objections by Roderick T. Long
Anarcho-Capitalism: An Annotated Bibliography by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
Stuff by Lysander Spooner
Start getting acquainted with material by Hans Hoppe, Spooner, and Block. Read material by Wendy McElroy; start at dailyanarchist.com.
Then, as a friend of mine on this board likes to say, "learn economics."
It you have a sharp mind, you can read and digest this stuff in weeks, maybe months. It has taken me years, and I'm still scratching the surface. Reading material from great minds like those linked above is like learning to play chess by playing against grandmasters. You become better very quickly. You also come to realize the degree of intellectual emptiness that surrounds you. But that helps you to focus your efforts on those who show promise.
On that last point, I don't try to convince folks online of anything related to ethics and political philosophy. I find most are like Kiopa_Matt and johnmatrix. Lost causes.
If you're different, start reading. Start exploring.
Okay, say I accrue hundreds of millions of dollars in this anarchist society. What is to stop me from getting people together by offering them money? I pay people off, buy the best weapons, and just slowly take over the country by ruling with fear. If you cross me, one of my people will kill you. Much like how dictators exist in lots of middle eastern countries.
The concept is a great one, but it's just that - there's no example anywhere in the world of it working practically in its entirety. If it was practical, surely there'd be somewhere which developed naturally that way? Humans don't have what it takes to live without a leader. Whilst individuals may well do, as an entirety, we do not. This is proven time and time again. You can see it at the lowest of levels by looking at a friendship group. You'll see that there's a clear leader in most any friendship group, someone who organises things, someone who keeps people in line and someone that almost polices the group.
The only thing that could stop you were the people. Unlike now, where this scenario is happening all the time (America slaughtering people all over the world for example thanks to a few lobbyists) and the people are even forced to pay for it.
Did democracy develop naturally or did a change in the mind of people happen so they changed the system?
Leaders and groups are a good thing and not discouraged in an anarchy. Of course not. The idea is just that we stop accepting people forcing those groups on us.
If we would stop that, then we would have anarchy. If some group gets to power again, well, then we are exactly where we started...
So your whole argument is that we would end off where we started? Maybe you are right. Let's find out and give it a try. What do we have to lose?
What's your incentive?
Governments today wage wars by spending other people's money and sending other people to fight for them, usually with the incentive of kickbacks/profits from expanding power and resources.
You'd have to pay for that army. And you'd have to sell them on why they should be slaughtering their friends and family. That'd require some hardcore propaganda.
If the only incentive they have is money, the people would most likely figure out someone in your ranks who has access to you and double their pay to kill you.
It could happen. But the incentive is drastically reduced, so it's much less likely. It DOES happen today under Statism, because centralized power makes it easy to create motives, finance and use centralized media to sell war under the guise of fighting an evil dictator/terrorist/boogieman/etc.
There are, Alaska before the early 1800's is one example. On the other side of that coin, you can easily prove that every Government to ever exist is impractical, immoral, violent and exists solely to exploit it's people through coercion.
I disagree.
It doesn't matter though. If people want leaders they can have them. There'd be all kinds of communities with chosen leaders. The difference is the people would be lead voluntarily. You could start a communist enclave if you wanted, as long as you don't use the threat of violence to force people under your leadership.
I don't know what would happen. I don't see it possibly being any worse than the system we have today though. It's easy to be complacent if you live somewhere like the U.S. Spend a year in a war-zone taking direct fire and watching people get blown up everyday (I have). Or a year in prison (I haven't), and you'll see what the State really stands for.
Well I wont be able to do the conversation justice because I'm not going to be fully committed to it and I have other things to do. I'm thinking we could both write books of text arguing back and forth. But here's a few quickies.
Security Firm Problems
1) If you need to hire a security firm to protect you and settle disputes, then are those who are old, poor, and without family or friends doomed to be trampled upon because they can't pay up? Those people would not be free. There are more of those type of people than you'd think. Their 'rights' would constantly be trampled on.
2) There's little question that security firms would eventually consolidate into larger firms. Power always seeks more power and it's consolidation. Eventually there would only be 1 or 2 most powerful firms that could raise prices, and wield the most power. What's the difference between living under that kind of firm and a government? How would you stop monopolies, especially security firm monopolies?
3) What if the largest security firm decides to get into human traffic, slavery, etc? What if they decide to tell people what they can and can not do.. to rule you. Over the years they've built enough wealth and weapons to easily defeat masses of people wielding simple guns and machine guns. They have sucked the people dry of their money by demanding higher and higher security costs.. kind of like a tax. And now, surprise, they use that money against you. They have stealth fighters and bombers, the peasants have rag-tag prop planes. They have mini-nukes, you have home-made machine guns. They have biological and chemical weapons, you have some chemicals from the local private school's chemistry lab.
Anarchy Sustainability Problems
1) Sustainability - The larger issue here is that anarchy is likely completely unsustainable. It is naturally weaker than others forms of government and power. Volunteerism is always weaker.. you need no more proof of that then the fact that anarchist societies don't exist right now.. they have been weeded out and destroyed by more powerful systems. A book could be filled with real scenarios of how when there is a power vacuum, someone will step in to fill it. So how would you sustain anarchy?
2) Domestic Threats - If you're under the control of a local gang because you don't have the money or resources to fight them, then you're not free and you're not experiencing Anarchy - you're experiencing Despotism. There are thousands of realistic scenarios like this that would crop up in a matter of weeks of a declared 'anarchy' region. A short list of constant domestic threats to your state of anarchy: local gangs, large families, clans, security firms, super-sized security firms, large businesses, religious cults, famous military generals seizing power, anyone with more money resources and friends than you, etc. Anarchy is likely just an impossibility based on sustainability alone. How would anarchy deal with all of these domestic threats?
3) Foreign Threats - As I said above, an anarchy region will always be less powerful than a modern state. I've run out of steam to keep writing so I'll keep this short. But if I'm wrong, then its up to modern day anarchists to prove me wrong by forming an anarchy that will stand up to foreign threats. I've only got historical and modern day evidence to support my claim. The fact that there are no true anarchist societies right now should tell you everything right there. How would you deal with all of the foreign threats?
4) Constant Battle (Terrible Quality of Life) - If you trust someone else to do your fighting for you, then you have given that entity power by funding it, etc. That entity then becomes a larger threat to the anarchy itself. This is also the case when you declare generals. By definition a general has power to give orders and commands to other people (thereby reducing your freedom).. and I'd like to see you defend your anarchy from foreign invaders w/out leaders/generals. If you did fight all regional and local battles yourself then it would likely be a constant battle. You'd have a terrible quality of life. How can you sell anarchy, when it's likely to decrease the quality of life.
Lastly
Personally, my life is pretty peaceful and easy right now. If we are slaves to an out of control government, then we slaves are living better than Lords and Kings did centuries ago. I came from a poor family but now I work maybe 30 days a year and make low six figures. 30 days a year! I don't feel like a slave. If I'm a slave then I definitely have it much better than any slave in history. I'm trying to say that my quality of life under this system is likely much better than in an anarchy where I'd likely have to fight local and foreign offenders every day to maintain it. Most of us feel the same. Few of us would want to lose our life in support of an impossibility like Anarchy.
So I'll end this by saying that I suppose it's easier for you modern day Anarchists to just believe that the world is full of dumb people keeping you down. But if anarchy was worth a damn shouldn't it be able to withstand some dumb people in and out of it's region? Dumb people will always exist. Hopefully anarchy can withstand dumb people.
It's also easier to believe that you can't have your dream of anarchy because people are lazy cowards, and love to be led, they love being submissive. They are keeping you down. But shouldn't an anarchy that's worth a damn be able to survive through a storm of lazy submissive cowards? If not, then is anarchy sustainable and worth a damn? There will always be lazy, submissive cowards.
If any anarchy is to survive it sounds like it's going to be a constant struggle for it's people to maintain it. So why aren't wanna-be anarchists doing that right now? You could start a small anarchy right now. Start the struggle! Go out and do it. See how long it stands up against the internal and external threats I've mentioned. Are you waiting for a certain amount of people to back you up? Then I guess your anarchy has another flaw.. which is a minimum amount of people that must constantly support it. What is that number?
Wannabe anarchists are just as pathetic as the rest of us until they quit whining about others keeping them down and get out there themselves, declare an anarchy and start their inevitable struggle against foreign and domestic threats. Or are you waiting for modern governments to relinquish their power and hand you your freedom/anarchy in a gift-wrapped box?
I'll start at the top... At least some of those arguments are "But who will pick the cotton?" arguments... Just because we don't know how it will work does not mean government (or slavery with the cotton example) should not be abolished. But I will answer anyway, but keep in mind I can only make assumptions. In the end the free market will solve those problems in an unique way. Same with slavery, do you think those people could have imagined the machinery that is now doing the work?
Security firms would want a good image. So why would they not help poor people for free? Or maybe charities would take care of that? There are many options, I don't know how it will be solved for sure, but I know there are many possible solutions to that, the easiest one carrying a weapon.
A monopoly can only exist if competition is forcefully removed, for example through government. If a firm would start initiating force, then nothing would stop people from unsubscribing from their service and defend themselves, either through another firm or with their own guns.
Worst case scenario you have guerrilla warfare against that firm, which will lead to bankruptcy sooner or later.
See above. Here you make the false assumption that they can just charge more money. Wrong. There will be competition around unless the firm takes them out by force, which likely will result in resistance from the people in that area.
There is almost no way that such firms could afford stealth fighters and nuclear and chemical weapons. They are simply not needed to do their job. So why would they buy them? If they do, competing firms will have lower running costs and take their market share.
You don't NEED a security firm, you can also defend yourself. A firearm does not cost a lot of money and is a big equalizer, so even old people can defend themselves (remember that video of that old guy?).
Security firms would want a good image. So why would they not help poor people for free? Or maybe charities would take care of that? There are many options, I don't know how it will be solved for sure, but I know there are many possible solutions to that, the easiest one carrying a weapon.
A monopoly can only exist if competition is forcefully removed, for example through government. If a firm would start initiating force, then nothing would stop people from unsubscribing from their service and defend themselves, either through another firm or with their own guns.
Worst case scenario you have guerrilla warfare against that firm, which will lead to bankruptcy sooner or later.
See above. Here you make the false assumption that they can just charge more money. Wrong. There will be competition around unless the firm takes them out by force, which likely will result in resistance from the people in that area.
There is almost no way that such firms could afford stealth fighters and nuclear and chemical weapons. They are simply not needed to do their job. So why would they buy them? If they do, competing firms will have lower running costs and take their market share.
Ireland's anarchistic tribalism lasted for about a 1000 years if I am not wrong until they got taken over by force by the English. They managed to defends themselves for so long because of guerrilla warfare.
You can't win against a society that has weapons and you don't have the majority supporting you. Guerrilla warfare will wear any occupier down and make the whole thing unsupportable.
There would not be a power vacuum. The power would be with the people.
Of course only a real life example could show that it can be sustained, but this is something that I actually want to do in the next few decades. I have a few ideas, but that's for another thread.
And as a side note, no government form was sustainable so far.
So like mini governments? Go somewhere were they don't have control. They prevent that? Well, welcome to today's world...
If that gang is initiating force against people, then I am sure either some people will gang up and get rid of them or for example even a security firm could take care of that. That would be great advertising for them and probably earn them a lot of new customers.
This is a real problem, I agree. An invasion can be fought off trough guerrilla warfare, but economic intervention would be a problem for a small start up anarchistic society.
If anarchism is already widespread, this poses no threat. But in the beginning it will be a problem. If someone has a solution to this, let me know.
Guerrilla warfare takes away the incentive to occupy some area. I don't see where and why those battles would arise. People are quite capable to life peacefully together if given the chance.
You might not feel as a slave, but I certainly do. I went through mandatory army service and even now that I am finished, I still have to go to the shooting range once a year (or go to jail). Also I have to ask the government whenever I leave the country for more than 6 months, otherwise I become a criminal.
This is just one small example. Oh did I mention that I live in a country that is in the top 5 rated for freedom?
The world is fucked up and change is needed. This is why I took the time to actually write those responses. I am saving money so I can pursue my idea of an anarchistic society in the future.
I am not willing anymore to accept this criminal organization taking over my life. I can't change it right now, but I am working towards a solution. If you feel comfortable and don't want change, that's fine with me. There are more and more people who want a change and it will happen at some point in the future.
I doubt you would. I've never used a security firm and I've never used cops. Self-defense is a human right. I'd assume that voluntary security watchdog groups (like neighborhood watch) would form.
Or security firms could charge on an as needed/per call basis. I don't know.
I do know that if I saw someone robbing/harming my elderly/poor/whatever neighbor I'd help. I think most people would. That's human nature.
First of all, we live under the monopoly of a security firm right now. The only power authorized without state coercion is the power to defend. It could happen. People could boycott them. Violence is expensive. It's hard to convince people to initiate violence without cause. I don't think there'd be a monopoly on security because ultimately it's an individual responsibility.
Once people realize there's a threat, they'll most likely neutralize it. It could happen. You could also get blown up with a nuke tomorrow as blow-back from one of our state's many acts of aggression. Who knows?
That scenario sounds familiar.
Reject violence. People used to believe the Sun revolved around the Earth. They used to burn accused heretics alive. They used to own slaves. They used to worship kings. People are waking up to the fact that statism is evil, it's the biggest threat to mankind, and I personally think that one day it'll be cast aside and people will wonder WTF kind of backwards beliefs our generation had for tolerating such a violent, immoral system.
You may have to fight for it, who knows?
More efficiently than a Government having a monopoly on power would.
I'm not saying it'd be utopia, that there'd be no violence. Why aren't you living under gang rule right now? You think it's the police? It's most likely because your society rejects it. The State creates the problems that breeds gangs (black markets, poverty, taxation).
What's the incentive of attacking a non-aggressive people with no centralized power? I can't prove you wrong. But I can guarantee you that we're creating a much larger incentive to be attacked by foreign threats by policing the world and murdering civilians. People don't hate our people. They hate our Government.
You just described Statism again, except the people we pay have a monopoly on power. Why would it be constant battle? Do you not rape/murder/steal just because your afraid of the State? I'm assuming it's more to do with morals. And if it was the former, people have the right to defend themselves. Just because there's no State "protecting" me from crime doesn't mean I won't kill someone who invades my property or harms my family without hesitation. And I, like most people, hope that never happens. But it's just as likely now as it would be without a state.
So is mine. That's the problem. It's Stockholm Syndrome. "Well, they're not bombing ME." "Who cares that millions of people are in prison for non-violent crimes, it won't happen to ME." "Well, maybe a million people did die in that war, but it was to protect ME".
If we're lucky it'll always be great living in the USA. But if you believe in karma/God/the law of nature or just right and wrong in general, if we sit back and let the State continue to do what it does, we won't be living the good life for long.
All you have to do to relinquish the state is to quit supporting it and reject its authority. If enough people do that it evaporates. You wake up enough people to what it really is and it's gone.
Anarchy isn't something you "declare", it's something people do voluntarily. The best thing you can do is try to open people's eyes without forcing your belief systems on them and do your best to live well no matter what happens.
You practice anarchy everyday. You probably don't notice the State in 99% of your life with exception to taxes. You don't need a permit to walk up the street. For now...
Theft presupposes valid property. Yet property is theft and invalid. Hence, there was no theft, as there was no property, so property is fine. But it's also theft.
Taken from mises.org
Mind=blown
My incentive is more power. The same incentive everyone has. Hitler wanted more power. The state wants more power. Everything is a power struggle, and someone eventually wins.
All that would happen if anarchism begun is a slow progression to a system like we have in place now, there'd likely be civil war as people ganged up to try and take control of areas, steal other people's property and so forth. An individual cannot protect himself against many attackers, with better arms. It just would not sustain itself, people would seek power and they would use force, propaganda and everything else. They'd promise people shit they can't have (like the gov't does today). They'd basically do what the nazi party did, in order to get people to do ridiculous shit that most people didn't even think they were capable of doing.
I just don't buy that humans can exist in a way where someone doesn't win out and maintain overall power. In our case, that's the government. If the government goes down, another one would eventually replace it, for better or for worse.
As a concept, it's ideal, but it can't ever happen practically. We had anarchism hundreds of years ago, when there was no civilisation - but we came together and governments ended up being formed as people leapt for power. First we had monarchs (pretty much people that had fought for tons of land and passed it down generations), then slowly over time democracy gained more power (in the UK example).
It's cognitive dissonance. Nothing you can do about it. People susceptible to this sort of thinking have much deeper psychological issues than we can solve with rational discourse.
If your incentive is more power, then you must really not like the current structure where you're basically a peon.
You can have market power if you play the game properly. Violence isn't the only form of power to wield.
That wouldn't be anarchy then.
Anarchy is the absence of aggressive force. The initiation of force against innocent people.
If you oppose the use of such violence arbitrarily, then you're sympathetic to anarchy.
No offense, but you haven't lived very long, and it's unlikely you've spent a fraction of the time considering the topic that many of the people who are participating in this discussion have.
It happens constantly, all around you. You're unable to identify it.
That happened before Smith&Wesson.
Now everyone can actually defend themselves. Back in the days the physically stronger would have won. Guns (and other weapons) equalize that to a certain degree.
I'm saying that people naturally seek power, in general. Human nature involves aggressive force. It's one thing that's been entirely constant throughout the entirety of human history. How do you get rid of that aggressive force?
I support the theory of anarchy, if we could live in an anarcho-capitalist world , that would be perfect. I just believe that human nature doesn't support such a model, and that a state would emerge given enough time, in all circumstances unless human nature changes fundamentally.