A rational case for anarchism

[WildCat]

Who funded the creation of the Taliban, hmm?

Pakistan mostly.

It was dear old Uncle Sam

Nope.

 

[INRM]

Policenaut,

Anarchy promotes survival of the fittest. And the fittest are usually barbaric monsters more interested in protecting their power than anything else.

Finally somebody realizes this

So once the government collapses you think no one is going to try to control sections of the country?

Of course people are going to try and gain control. Anarchy would produce a power vacuum, and nature abhors a vacuum. Eventually someone would manage to maneuver themselves into power. Chances are this person would not necessarily be a nice guy, but the most manipulative, ruthless, and power hungry monster you could imagine.

Gangs will rule. So anarchists are against this. What are you going to do about it?

They couldn't do a thing

Will you risk your life to stand up to them?

Few people would, those who would would probably be taken out swiftly.

Sure it would be different in the US. The inhuman thugs over here would bask in excesses but would be no less ruthless in killing anyone who opposed them and making the rest of the population subservient.

Correct

Gangs would expand unimpeded and become even more violent than they already are now with no fear of reprisal by police.

Of course

If gangs can take over prisons what do you think they could do unleashed on society with no opposition except "good people"? It's quite easy to see where things would go.

Yes, but amazingly there are people who can't make that basic connection

 

[Loss Leader]

It worked for the Inuit. They had threither government, nor police, nor laws. Everything was accomplished by way of a strong common culture of shared principle, outside of hierarchy. How do you know that kind of culture couldn't be modified to fit a dense urban populace?

Several reasons:

1. The Inuit lived in small bands of twenty to forty with some as large as a couple hundred. They not only all knew each other but were all related by blood.

2. The Inuit were in a state of near constant warfare. While crime within a band might have been rare, raids against other bands were not. And all Inuit were at war with other native tribes.

3. The Inuit owned next to nothing and there were virtually no class divisions of any kind. Even the chief of a large band lived only marginally better than the others, if he lived any better at all.

4. The Inuit lived in an area with remarkably scarce resources. Food and shelter were so difficult to come by that constant family cooperation was necessary for mere survival. They were almost completely communistic in dividing labor and sharing their gains.

5. The Inuit did not prosper. Perhaps it was a one-time experiment but we know for a fact that all the Inuit ever did for their entire history was nearly starve. The individuals who built large cities and moved beyod subsistence were not Inuit and shared almost none of their characteristics.

Source: The Man Who Ate His Boots - a history of English exploration of the Northwest Passage

 

[Virus]

I believe he meant 'listened to' in the sense of "having their concerns taken seriously by the public at large" rather than "monitored by law enforcement to preempt them from acting as crazy as they talk"

Yes. That's what I meant. Anarchists are big on saying what they're against but have nothing to put forward on how to make things better. It's a faith-based movement.

 

[Naddig74]

OT I know, but Virus, you have the coolest avatar I've yet seen. I love Spess Mureens.

Carry on.

 

[ponderingturtle]

It worked for the Inuit. They had threither government, nor police, nor laws. Everything was accomplished by way of a strong common culture of shared principle, outside of hierarchy. How do you know that kind of culture couldn't be modified to fit a dense urban populace?

Yes small tribal societies don't have formal governments, so how are you planning on destroying enough of the population so that everyone lives in small tribal societies? To return everyone to the kind of hunter gatherers who live in small enough populations that you get a kind of anarchy means we can have only a few million people on earth.

Of course they might not have formal governments but they do enforce social norms for their own cultures.

 

[Virus]

So what's the rational case for Anarchism? I think the OP is an anarcho-capitalist because he referenced Mises. I'll give the anarcho-capitalists this; At least they don't have to invent the economic system from scratch like the classical left anarchists that split off from the early socialist and Marxist movement. Still, a mixture of state and private enterprises along with co-operatives, charities ect under a liberal democratic state works pretty well. It's not perfect but radically altering the economy by removing the state and diving into an unknown theory, based on assumptions would be a very silly thing to do.

 

[theprestige]

I think the problem is that you can't have anarchy and community at the same time.

Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from government. And any insufficiently well-organized community isn't worth living in.

 

[Ladewig]

If someone has committed a crime serious enough to warrant a boycott by the community at large, then their right of unlimited secession means that they can pack their bags and get out, or stay and be an unwelcome pariah with whom no one will do business. I think that's fair, provided people are individually able to choose whether to boycott or not, and there's no coercion involved.

Unless that person's trade is so necessary to the community that a boycott is impossible (e.g. a doctor in a very small town).

In any case, given that the security forces are at the local level, criminals could move into a town, murder someone and simply move a few hundred miles down the road. Of course, such murderers would have to avoid killing relatives of wealthy people because then the victim's family could hire a posse. I prefer having an effective system of justice available to all people. I also like having an interstate database that allows all jurisdictions to quickly determine if a suspect in a minor crime is wanted for a major crime in another location.

Speaking of community boycotts, I like living in a country where entire cities cannot discriminate against minorities.


ETA: I do hope that in this utopia, I don't end up living near a community that legalizes slavery. I would hate to be someone else's slave.

 

[Policenaut]

Money would be fairly meaningless in an anarchist state. Is there going to be a replacement for the federal reserve? Is there going to be a banking system in place? Who is going to back it? With what? Trade/barter would likely be the best of circumstances. The worst would be take what you want by any means necessary. So either the starving, desperate person can trade you some gasoline for food and water...or he can rob and/or kill you, keep the gasoline and take the food/water and anything else you have.

 

[KingMerv00]

If America collapses into anarchy, who gets control of the military?












DIBS!!!



*Flys around the countryside in an AC-130 exploding random mailboxes*

 

[Naddig74]

In Conn Igguldens brilliant Conqueror series, which dramatises the life of Genghis Khan, a young Genghis (known as Temujin at that point) and one of his brothers are escorting his new wife back from her to tribe to where his are camped.

In the distance they see two more men on horseback. Normally there would be no issue; the travellers would pass each other at a safe distance, they might even talk to each other, each pair having nothing the others want there would be no quarrel.

The presence of the woman changes everything. Temujin and his brother decide that the two men they have seen will certainly want to take her for themselves, and so they immediately attack and kill the two men out of hand, as a kind of pre-emptive defense.

I know, of course, that is a fictional encounter based on sparse records of the period, but this is what anarchy would be like.

Anybody who isn't part of you 'voluntary community' (tribe) is a potential threat. If you take the time to find out, it might be too late. 'Kill first, strip the bodies and then as if anyone has any questions' is likely to be the most commonly successful strategy.

 

[theprestige]

If someone has committed a crime serious enough to warrant a boycott by the community at large, then their right of unlimited secession means that they can pack their bags and get out

r0ast p0tat0es, what rights are there in an anarchy? How does the local pariah have any right to do anything at all? What if the rest of the community decides to lynch him instead? How far do the limits of his right to "unlimited" secession run in that case?

What if the next community over doesn't want to admit him? What if no community wants to admit him? What if all the communities on the continent form a meta-community federation, and jointly claim amongst themselves all the territory? Where does our lonesome pariah secede to?

And in an anarchy, what stops local communities from making such arrangements?

Indeed, what stops them from simply boarding up the pariah in his own house and burning it down around him?

Indeed, in an anarchy, what right does anybody have, except the right to die in a fire if that's what somebody else wants from them?

Anarchy may have certain features, but warm fuzzy human rights isn't one of them. In an anarchy, your right to practice the golden rule ends precisely where my fist begins. That's pretty much what "anarchy" means.

Any society that recognizes a person's "unlimited right to secession", and permits them to secede at will, is a government, plain and simple. It has to be, to recognize rights, and to permit independent action.

If they can't permit independent action, then they're powerless and irrelevant to this discussion. If they can permit independent action, but don't, then you're right back to government again.

 

[CplFerro]

Several reasons:

1. The Inuit lived in small bands of twenty to forty with some as large as a couple hundred. They not only all knew each other but were all related by blood.

2. The Inuit were in a state of near constant warfare. While crime within a band might have been rare, raids against other bands were not. And all Inuit were at war with other native tribes.

3. The Inuit owned next to nothing and there were virtually no class divisions of any kind. Even the chief of a large band lived only marginally better than the others, if he lived any better at all.

4. The Inuit lived in an area with remarkably scarce resources. Food and shelter were so difficult to come by that constant family cooperation was necessary for mere survival. They were almost completely communistic in dividing labor and sharing their gains.

5. The Inuit did not prosper. Perhaps it was a one-time experiment but we know for a fact that all the Inuit ever did for their entire history was nearly starve. The individuals who built large cities and moved beyod subsistence were not Inuit and shared almost none of their characteristics.

Source: The Man Who Ate His Boots - a history of English exploration of the Northwest Passage

Wiki I do not accept as a source, but a book I will.

Well, thanks for kicking the crap out of my submission. Now I have zero examples of functioning capital-A Anarchy anywhere, at any time in history. Which, I think, places Anarchy in the category of a faith-based worldview.

 

[Ladewig]

Welcome to the next golden age age of snake oil salesmanship. I can't wait to sell my magic healing wand (see link ) without any pesky interference from the imperialist FDA/FTC.

I also look forward to visiting London without a federally-issued passport. I'm sure a letter from my community leader will be sufficient.

 

[Ladewig]

If someone has committed a crime serious enough to warrant a boycott by the community at large, then their right of unlimited secession means that they can pack their bags and get out

r0ast p0tat0es, what rights are there in an anarchy? .

I prefer the checks and balances of a police department and a separate judiciary, police having to get a judge to sign a search warrant, and a fair system of appeals which follows a documented structure.

 

[Ladewig]

In any case, it's fairly obvious that regulations were not followed at BP... In fact it seems that the company has a pretty dubious safety record in general.

So the automatic cry is one for more regulation by the state, because God knows that will sort them out! Yes, the state which simply hadn't considered oil industry safety until now... No, there were only 400 federal and state agencies/commitees/etcs with concurrent jurisdiction over such matters before the incident, I'm sure the 401st will be the charm! It would not have been possible for the government not to know about the safety issues at BP. Either they didn't care, or they were criminally inept. Either way, trying again makes no rational sense. This is like banging your head against a wall. It's like asking the mafia to improve safety at their bootleg hooch still. They obviously do not care, and voting for the next smiling candidate who invariably say that they do is just painfully gullible.

You are ignoring all the times when federal and state agencies have enforced safety measures which saved lives and property. Furthermore, under your plan, why would safety measures be increased on drilling rigs 48 miles from shore?

 

[Ladewig]

From an economic perspective, there is nothing the government "provides" that could not be provided by the market to most and charity to those in genuine need.

One last quick question. In this new society that you envision, how much do you personally expect to donate to charity hospitals? I ask because every anarchist I have encountered before answers "none."

 

[Loss Leader]

Well, thanks for kicking the crap out of my submission. Now I have zero examples of functioning capital-A Anarchy anywhere, at any time in history. Which, I think, places Anarchy in the category of a faith-based worldview.

Jared Diamond, in Guns, Germs, and Steel, pretty much equates centralized government with increasing resources. Families or bands, the smallest groups, are always associated with the poorest subsistence nomadism. Clans and tribes are semi-nomadic. Once a commitment is made to sedentary agriculture, large society and government always accompanies it.

The degree of "bureaucracy," if I remember correctly, varies with the chance that a citizen's daily interactions will bring him into contact with strangers.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Well, how long before Anarchy becomes Ochlocracy, as Plato warned?

And modern Anarchism doesnt have much precedent in the world.