Any Anarchists Here?

[phantomb]

There is no known solution to that problem. We have that same problem in our society. The difference is that in our society, he only has to bribe one government and there is no independent check.

I named three problems:

1) if the aggressor is well liked and the victim is not well liked or just plain poor, there might not be anybody who wants to spend from their own pocket to get the private justice involved.

2) if the aggressor is rich he can bribe the private justice.

3) if the aggressor is rich and has a private army, the private justice system may not be willing or even capable of bringing him in.

In our society (1) and (3) are already solved. The justice system attempts to track down and deal with all criminals regardless of how popular their victims are, and we just plain don't let people build up private armies. Bribery and manipulation by the rich and powerful is probably a universal issue, but I can only see the situation being worse in an anarchy compared to our society.

The difference is that no single organization would have a monopoly on the use of force so that superior organizations could rise above inferior ones. There would be no machinery of state for the super-rich to commandeer, as they do in our society.

Putting aside the fact that having multiple private justice systems existing in competition with each other can't possibly be a good thing, in our society people do have some power to change the organization, they just use votes and representatives instead of dollars.

I may not be making the best arguments here, it's hard to defend something you don't believe in.

I can imagine.

 

[Skeptic]

I'm surprised BikerDruid hasn't chimed in, as he is an avowed anarchist and frequents this subforum.

He SAYS he is a "communist anarchist". What he REALLY IS is someone who worked for the government (as a teacher) for decades and lived in a capitalist country all his life: a pro-government capitalist.

 

[Virus]

He SAYS he is a "communist anarchist". What he REALLY IS is someone who worked for the government (as a teacher) for decades and lived in a capitalist country all his life: a pro-government capitalist.

Don't think that follows. You wouldn't say Amjen Choudary is a secular democrat because he lives in England which is a secular democratic state.

 

[angrysoba]

Don't think that follows. You wouldn't say Amjen Choudary is a secular democrat because he lives in England which is a secular democratic state.

Fortunately Anjem Choudary has an excuse. He can live off weak Western indulgence and still preach hate against his benefactors without being inconsistent in his views. The people who provide him a living are kuffar.

As far as I know, anarchism doesn't have such ideas as "kuffar". Most anarchists - particularly left-anarchists - cannot be consistent in their beliefs if they rely on a government to pay for their livelihood. Doesn't mean that they give a fig for consistency, of course.

 

[bikerdruid]

He SAYS he is a "communist anarchist". What he REALLY IS is someone who worked for the government (as a teacher) for decades and lived in a capitalist country all his life: a pro-government capitalist.

my, how little you really know.....

 

[WildCat]

I think I was pretty clear what I mean by an 'anarchist'. I've met anarchocapitalists who, at least as far as I could tell, did seem to advocate a system that was free of governments.

So what happens when the creep down the block starts raping kids?

I agree that this is so, but that is because you and I are not anarchocapitalists. Obviously, anarchocapitalists would argue that you can.

How could any contract be enforced without government involvement?

 

[JoelKatz]

So what happens when the creep down the block starts raping kids?

There's no government to stop you from kicking his ass. As I said, an anarchist society will only criminalize what people are willing to expend their own resources to criminalize, so it may undercriminalize. But governments overcriminalize. So you have to decide which is worse.

Likely there would be established agreements about who kicks his ass, who pays for it, and how you establish that you're not kicking the wrong person's ass (because in that case, other agreements might result in other people kicking your ass). It's an obvious problem, so people and companies will certainly work out procedures to handle it.

How could any contract be enforced without government involvement?

If we lived in a communist country where the government provided everyone with three free meals a day, you might well ask how you could grow, cook and distribute food without the government. All I could tell you is that people would figure out good ways to do it, but I couldn't predict Starbucks or Costco.

Contracting could include agreeing which enforcement organization and private court would be used to enforce the contract just as contracts include choice of law or arbitration provisions today. Because every contract requires an agreement between the parties to begin with, this is actually the easier problem (compared to things like pollution, trespass, and the like), they can agree on how the contract will be enforced.

(And, again, these are exactly the areas where I think anarchism would actually fail.)

 

[theprestige]

Likely there would be established agreements about who kicks his ass, who pays for it, and how you establish that you're not kicking the wrong person's ass (because in that case, other agreements might result in other people kicking your ass). It's an obvious problem, so people and companies will certainly work out procedures to handle it.

Bolding mine, on account of it brings us right to why I think anarchists and libertarian extremists are wrong: Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government*.

I mean, who are you kidding, here? People and companies work out procedures about who kicks whose ass and who pays for it, and those who violate those procedures get their own asses kicked, but there's no government? Pull the other one while you're at it!


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*And any insufficiently well-organized community isn't worth living in.

 

[JoelKatz]

Bolding mine, on account of it brings us right to why I think anarchists and libertarian extremists are wrong: Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government*.

I think I pointed out the distinction. It's government if, and only if, it has the exclusive accepted right to regulate the use of non-emergency force in a given geographic region.

I mean, who are you kidding, here? People and companies work out procedures about who kicks whose ass and who pays for it, and those who violate those procedures get their own asses kicked, but there's no government? Pull the other one while you're at it!

Right, there's no government. No single organization gets to decide what the rules are. The rules have to be agreed upon among organizations that each retain the accepted right to use force, even in non-emergency situations.

This is precisely what happens now in the international arena. If Israel thinks Iran is doing something it shouldn't, there's no court they can take them to. There is no entity that has the unique accepted right to use force between Israel and Iran. They can only go bomb Iran (or convince other countries to bomb Iran) and try to convince other countries not to bomb them in return. They can only rely on the agreements they have already made between other countries.

Countries on Earth interact with each other much the way some anarchists imagine non-governmental organizations interacting.

(As I said elsewhere, the reason why I don't think it will work is that eventually you will wind up with but a single organization that retains the right to the non-emergency use of force in each region anyway, so eventually they will just turn into governments, but worse because there's no reason to expect them to be Democratic.)

 

[Skeptic]

To clarify, I am not implying working for a government as a teacher in a capitalist country is in any way wrong. I am just saying you can hardly do that and claim to be a "communist anarchist". By the way, communism and anarchism are diametrical opposites, which means being a "communist anarchist" is a logical contradiction.

 

[WildCat]

To clarify, I am not implying working for a government as a teacher in a capitalist country is in any way wrong. I am just saying you can hardly do that and claim to be a "communist anarchist". By the way, communism and anarchism are diametrical opposites, which means being a "communist anarchist" is a logical contradiction.

The people claiming to be that are just run-of-the-mill communists. They just add on the "anarchist" bit to be edgy and hip. Have to keep the youngsters interested you know!

 

[Rogue1stclass]

pre colmbian america knew far more times of peace than of war.
contrast that to today.
the united states has been at perpetual war, all over the world, since 1941.

Being of Amerind ancestry, this kind of pisses me off.

Ever notice that when the Europeans came here they encountered tribes with strong, proud traditions as warriors?

Why do you think that is?

Might it be that these tribes had to constantly compete with each other for limited resources, particularly hunting grounds?

There was constant warfare in Pre-Columbian America. Warfare that was only broken by the formation of multi-tribe nations like the Mississippians and Iroquois or by conquest by empires such as the Aztec and Inca.

American Indians aren't some magical people who lived in special harmony with the land. They were and are ordinary folk with the same needs and problems as any other humans.

They surely weren't some kind of poster boys for Utopian ideologies.