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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 10:13 AM

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nirgrahamUK:

forgive me for not attaching too great an import to your insights on that basis.

Why not?  What would be your take on the matter?

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 11:23 AM

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Jackson LaRose:

Angurse:

We objectively define where property rights come from."

Where?

His name is right there.

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 11:29 AM

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Hairnet:

1. I am an AnCap, I do not defend notions of rights, freedoms, or the absurdly dishonest rhetoric of so called "Voluntaryists".

Wait, are you saying I've been absurdly dishonest?

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 11:29 AM

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Angurse:

Jackson LaRose:

Angurse:

We objectively define where property rights come from."

Where?

His name is right there.

Whose name?

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 11:32 AM

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Jackson LaRose:

Whose name?

The fellow who said "we objectively define where property rights come from." Ask him.

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 11:36 AM

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Angurse:

Jackson LaRose:

Whose name?

The fellow who said "we objectively define where property rights come from." Ask him.

Ok. Angurse, where do property rights some from?

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 12:12 PM

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Jackson LaRose:

Ok. Angurse, where do property rights some from?

Why are you asking me?

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 12:39 PM

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Angurse:

Jackson LaRose:

Ok. Angurse, where do property rights some from?

Why are you asking me?

You told be to ask the guy who said it.

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 12:52 PM

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Have I told you to read before?

Angurse:

I think Bob Murphy summed it up best.

"Guys! Gene, you have been making the same point for two weeks now: "Sometimes libertarians think they can blow people up by saying 'nonaggression na na na' and they don't realize this by itself is a circular argument."

Stephan, you have been making the same point for two weeks now: "Gene, there is nothing circular about it the way I or Hoppe make the case. We objectively define where property rights come from."

And I have been making the same point for two weeks now: "Gene, there are plenty of people who generally agree with the initial premises of libertarians, and also think they don't approve of aggression, who contradict themselves. And there are also people who AGREE that they sometimes support violating property rights for a more important principle."

Were the scare quotes just to scary? Bob Murphy said it, and he was just paraphrasing Stephen Kinsella.

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 1:15 PM

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Oh, OK.  Sorry for derailing the thread.  I did a quick scan to try to find it earlier.  I'll be more thorough next time.

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 1:42 PM

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AJ:

Hairnet:

The market can  not settle what is outside the context of the market, a loose allegory is science trying to prove or disprove that a is a. It is outside its realm. A market exists because of a understanding of property by the populace. A market may be able to provide for competing methods and administrators of justice, but it can not provide for alternate systems of justice in the same geographical region, as it would be undercutting its own nature.

Can you elaborate this argument beyond prima facie plausibility? The bolded part in particular does not seem self-evident. Different legal systems have existed within the same territory in the past, according to this essay for example.

    As I said, I think that different government can exist within the same territory. Different interpretations and implementations of basic legal rights as well. For this to be possible, people would have to have an understanding of "whats yours is yours, whats mine is mine". Even if they disagreed with it, I think that people follow social norms in general just to get buy, Property rights (whatever they may be) allows people to allow one another the ability to remove themselves from one another. They can then associate freely with who they want not just as vagabonds, but also as owners within the context of that system

   How can we have a market without property? If the norms in society are "everyone is no one's, or everyone's is the kings", then how can anyone restrict anyone from their stuff? If they can't restrict others from their stuff, then instead of trade we get perpetual looting.

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 1:45 PM

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Angurse:

Hairnet:

1. I am an AnCap, I do not defend notions of rights, freedoms, or the absurdly dishonest rhetoric of so called "Voluntaryists".

Wait, are you saying I've been absurdly dishonest?

   I said that the rhetoric was dishonest. I don't know you.

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 1:58 PM

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Jackson LaRose:

Hairnet:

This is where the pluralists get it wrong. The market can  not settle what is outside the context of the market,

I mean the "market or human interaction", not just the market in its economic sense.  Why would this be outside the realm of the market?

Hairnet:

a loose allegory is science trying to prove or disprove that a is a. It is outside its realm.

 How do you define science?  Empirical observation validating hypothesis?  If this is so, than science is the only tool to validate anything.  Otherwise, it is just your imagination whether something is true or not.  Although I contend your assertion, even if I conceded the point, science is capable of changing your understanding of "A", as to make the original equation obsolete.

Hairnet:

A market exists because of a understanding of property by the populace.

I would argue that the market exists because many realize that cooperation is a more efficient, easier means to attain their ends than conflict.

Hairnet:

A market may be able to provide for competing methods and administrators of justice, but it can not provide for alternate systems of justice in the same geographical region, as it would be undercutting its own nature.

This only applies if you take your a priori assumption a sentence earlier as a given.

  1.  What in the world is the market of human action?

   2. This is a whole other discussion. 

  3. Yes, and part of that cooperation being easier comes from a clear understanding and respect for what someone' stuff is. Societies where people's property rights (whatever they may be) are regularly disrespected, the have less cooperation of the kind I am talking about.

  4. All of austrian theory is a priori. Economics has to be, because we can't do experiments.

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 2:27 PM

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Hairnet:

What in the world is the market of human action?

The market of human interaction simply means that ideas compete in a market, much in the way industries compete in a market, or genes compete in a market.  Ideas that are found to be advantageous by individuals will obtain a larger "share" of the available individuals.

Hairnet:

2. This is a whole other discussion. 

Hey, I didn't bring it up.

Hairnet:

Yes, and part of that cooperation being easier comes from a clear understanding and respect for what someone' stuff is. Societies where people's property rights (whatever they may be) are regularly disrespected, the have less cooperation of the kind I am talking about.

Again, I would contend your assumption.  It's simply a value proposition.  If I wanted something of yours, there are lots of ways to aquire it.  I could trade something for it, I could attempt to take it, I could kill/incapacitate you (assuming I had the tools) and then take it.  All of these have consequences,  if I trade, I will have to give up something I already posses, if I attempt to take it, it may lead to conflict, and if I fight you for it, I may lose, and get hurt, or if I kill you, others may seek revenge.  Barring any other external modifiers of the decision, I would probably attempt trade, or decide the item isn't worth any of these cost.  It may help modify your decision one way or the other, but I don't see how respect of your right to property is a requirement.

Hairnet:

4. All of austrian theory is a priori. Economics has to be, because we can't do experiments.

Agreed, we can't do laboratory expiriments, but a priori judgements would be completely arbitrary without knowledge, gained through empirical observation, to narrow the scope of sensible means to your end.  Praxeology itself is simply series of "if... then..." statements, or scientific hypothesis.

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 2:42 PM

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   1. Hasn't sateism won in the market of human action then?

   3. I don't know what you mean by value proposition. Do you think I am arguing an ethical opinion? I am not... its more sociology.

   I am saying that people's willingness to respect another's property, the utility that they see in respecting one someone's property  is what leads to a market.  All of the alternative actions have major consequences because other people see utility in enforcing these "rights" as well.

   I don' t think there are actual property rights, just like I don't think that monogamy is objectively better somehow to polygamy. I do think that people understand that there are consequences for the widespread practices of polygamy and monogamy, just like there are for the practices of property.

   4. I don't think praxeology is just a bunch of statements that can be refuted later at any time.

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E. R. Olovetto replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 3:20 PM

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Jackson LaRose:

Agreed, we can't do laboratory expiriments, but a priori judgements would be completely arbitrary without knowledge, gained through empirical observation, to narrow the scope of sensible means to your end.  Praxeology itself is simply series of "if... then..." statements, or scientific hypothesis.

This isn't all true. Mises took a different view of others on the validity of a priori laws. The "empirical" that these others (myself included) use as justification differ from that of the positivists. From general statements such as the action axiom are deduced further laws. Laboratory experiments are replaced with Gedankenexperiment (thought experiments). Through verbal logic we can suppose that a certain factor (ex. supply) is held constant, and then reach conclusions as you said. Since man differs from other dead and living matter in that he acts the options available differ from that of the natural sciences. The mechanistic approach simply doesn't apply to man. The certainty of praxeological laws is actually, if anything, greater than those reached through the natural sciences. The evidence of the failure of econometricians and positive economists is all around us as well. 

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 3:23 PM

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Hairnet:

1. Hasn't sateism won in the market of human action then?

Yes, it has thusfar managed to convince people it is in their best interest to perpetuate the state.

First, it was pure despotism, "obey me or I'll smash your head in".  After the number subjects began to grow under this powerful warrior, he could no longer just threaten them.  He coluded with the preists, and the message changed, "God told me to rule you.  If you don't obey me, God will punish you". So the masses listened for a while, but people's conception of God became softer (compare the jealous, violent, and insecure abrahamic storm-God with the internal, non-interventionist almost superfluous "kingdom of heaven lies within"  God of Paul's letters), fear of holy retribution wasn't effective in maintaining the Priest-King's monopoly of control.  Thus, God was dead, and his Earthly mouthpieces deposed.  The kingdom extinct, replaced by the nation-state.  Now how would these ambitious new leaders of these nation-states maintain the power of the crown?  Invent a new God!  This one would be called Man.  Much more down to Earth than God, and much more flexible. Humanity, mankind, French, American, your country, the greater good, the volk; Man wears many hats.  This new deception also had a great new method of control.  Elections.  Now the state must be "subject to the people", making this its greatest strength, and its only weakness.  Strength, because now the questioner of the state becomes a questioner of "the people", the people have been decieved into the ultimate stockholm syndrome.  They will defend their prisoners to the death! But elections are also the state's achilles heel.  If enough individuals begin to realize the deception, then they can vote against the state.  It will have no choice but to dissolve, or expose its actual goal of eternal perpetuation.

Whoa, kind of went on a tangent there, sorry. 

Hairnet:

3. I don't know what you mean by value proposition. Do you think I am arguing an ethical opinion? I am not... its more sociology.

I mean, the actor weighs his options when deciding how to act, depending on how much or little they matter to him.

Hairnet:

4. I don't think praxeology is just a bunch of statements that can be refuted later at any time.

What do you think it is?  I'm not really all that well versed in AE.  Mr. Knott, maybe you can shed some light?

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 3:26 PM

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E. R. Olovetto:

Laboratory experiments are replaced with Gedankenexperiment (thought experiments)

Wouldn't these exercises be completely arbitrary without prior experience?

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 4:29 PM

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   It sounds like you are saying "people should get to decide for themselves what system they live under".

   Is it possible that everyone can live in the system that they want to live in? Maybe if we had anarcho-socialist "nations", or zones, and AnCap "zones". I have no idea how that would work though.

   As for explaining AE, I can't do it justice. I think you said you were reading human action. I will give you a brief example of a though experiment.

   Mises's method from what I have gathered goes something like this...

   1. Is the statement consistent, and can someone attempt to argue against it without implicitly affirming it? Or is the statement derived logically from a statement of the previous type?

   2. What are the implications of the statement?

   3. For further proof of the statements truth, let us imagine what the world would look like if the statement was not true. This usually ends up describing a vaguely comprehensible and absurd world.

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wilderness replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 5:09 PM

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Angurse:

Its much worse, we are talking about trusting anarchists.

exactly

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 6:43 PM

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Hairnet:

   I said that the rhetoric was dishonest. I don't know you.

I'm a so called "voluntaryist" though.

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 7:03 PM

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Angurse:

m a so called "voluntaryist" though.

Hallelujah!  Holy humanist comin through!!!  You were baiting me the whole time?!  I bet you know what I'm gonna call you next...

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 7:35 PM

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I really don't thinks its much to assume that you don't know what voluntaryism is. But I haven't baited you and I'm not a humanist.

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 7:59 PM

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Angurse:

Hairnet:

   I said that the rhetoric was dishonest. I don't know you.

I'm a so called "voluntaryist" though.

  I guess it is kind of silly to say that rhetoric can be dishonest. Isn't that a human-specific quality?

  I think that voluntaryism is a dishonest rhetorical term because it makes one's beliefs seem more pluralistic than they can possibly be. I here people say "I am okay with socialism as long as it is voluntary". That doesn't mean anything to a socialist because they think that socialism is voluntary, and capitalism is aggressive against workers.

  If we look at what wikipedia says (if you disagree please say so)-

   "Voluntaryism, or voluntarism,^[1] is a philosophy that opposes anything that it sees as unjustifiably invasive and coercive. Voluntaryism regards government as coercive, and calls for its abolishment, but, unlike a number of other anarchist philosophies, it supports strong property rights which it regards as a natural law that is compatible with non-coercion.

The goal of voluntaryism is the supplantation of the state by a voluntary order, in which political authority is reverted to the individual, and association among people occurs only by mutual consent. Voluntaryists believe voluntaryism itself should be the means to achieve this goal, rather than forceful action."

   This is just Anarcho-Capitalism repackaged to look nicer to certain kinds of personalities. Just like how some people call themselves leftists even though they support market anarchism.  The thing is that there isn't anything voluntary about property rights, violence is required to maintain them. The only people who don't use violence are Tolstoyan pacifists.

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 8:13 PM

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I do disagree actually, but only on some points that aren't really relevant.

Voluntaryism isn't an attempt to repackage anarcho-capitalism, in fact, voluntaryism is older than anacho-capitalism. Now, "market anarchy" is a repackaging of AC in my opinion. Nothing in the wiki definition says that violence cannot and should not be used to defend property. However, we half to understand that their won't be a uniform theory of property, that's a statist concept. Just like law, the optimal system of property can only be found by competing systems. It would most likely differ depending on geography and culture.

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Jackson LaRose replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 8:18 PM

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Angurse:

I really don't thinks its much to assume that you don't know what voluntaryism is. But I haven't baited you and I'm not a humanist.

I dunno man... Fundamentals of Voluntaryism

Lots of talk of human rights this, and property rights that.  Well I guess you are a liberal, after all.

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 8:36 PM

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Read it, disagree. (And I never said I wasn't a liberal)

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 8:36 PM

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Angurse:

I do disagree actually, but only on some points that aren't really relevant.

Voluntaryism isn't an attempt to repackage anarcho-capitalism, in fact, voluntaryism is older than anacho-capitalism. Now, "market anarchy" is a repackaging of AC in my opinion. Nothing in the wiki definition says that violence cannot and should not be used to defend property. However, we half to understand that their won't be a uniform theory of property, that's a statist concept. Just like law, the optimal system of property can only be found by competing systems. It would most likely differ depending on geography and culture.

   I so badly want different Ideas about property to be safe from one another, but someone really needs to go into detail about how they can co-exist.

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 8:39 PM

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Hairnet:

   I so badly want different Ideas about property to be safe from one another, but someone really needs to go into detail about how they can co-exist.

Do you think different laws can co-exist?

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 8:48 PM

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“Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.” - Batiat

  Yes, The reason why is that people will respect the same basic meta-legal principles of property rights. It creates the context for competing law systems to arise. Saying that the market that comes from a certain variation of private property can account for "competing" ideas of private property is guilty of the stolen concept fallacy. The market (the economic market, not the market of ideas or action) is genetically dependent on the property rights that form it.

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 9:31 PM

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You shouldn't have a problem at all if you think people will respect meta-legal principles.

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Hairnet replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 10:12 PM

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  I will have a problem if they are left anarchists who have an ideological problem with commonly accepted meta-legal principles.

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Angurse replied on Sun, Feb 7 2010 10:32 PM

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Hairnet:

  I will have a problem if they are left anarchists who have an ideological problem with commonly accepted meta-legal principles.

If they are commonly accepted, it will be of little problem. Everyone has some ideological differences.

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In Restraint of State replied on Mon, Feb 8 2010 3:02 AM

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Hairnet:

Angurse:

Hairnet:

   I said that the rhetoric was dishonest. I don't know you.

I'm a so called "voluntaryist" though.

  I guess it is kind of silly to say that rhetoric can be dishonest. Isn't that a human-specific quality?

  I think that voluntaryism is a dishonest rhetorical term because it makes one's beliefs seem more pluralistic than they can possibly be. I here people say "I am okay with socialism as long as it is voluntary". That doesn't mean anything to a socialist because they think that socialism is voluntary, and capitalism is aggressive against workers.

  If we look at what wikipedia says (if you disagree please say so)-

   "Voluntaryism, or voluntarism,^[1] is a philosophy that opposes anything that it sees as unjustifiably invasive and coercive. Voluntaryism regards government as coercive, and calls for its abolishment, but, unlike a number of other anarchist philosophies, it supports strong property rights which it regards as a natural law that is compatible with non-coercion.

The goal of voluntaryism is the supplantation of the state by a voluntary order, in which political authority is reverted to the individual, and association among people occurs only by mutual consent. Voluntaryists believe voluntaryism itself should be the means to achieve this goal, rather than forceful action."

   This is just Anarcho-Capitalism repackaged to look nicer to certain kinds of personalities. Just like how some people call themselves leftists even though they support market anarchism.  The thing is that there isn't anything voluntary about property rights, violence is required to maintain them. The only people who don't use violence are Tolstoyan pacifists.

 

No, actually I think you totally miss the point. Property rights are indeed voluntary. Why? Sure violence is needed to DEFEND them...but not necessarily to maintain them. See what happened there? If nobody uses violence against you FIRST, then you never need violence to maintain property rights. You need violence to maintain property rights only when someone first uses violence against you. Using violence in a defensive manner is still adhering to voluntarism by the person that is defending. It's the person that initiated the violence in the first place that has broken the voluntary nature of things.

edit - I do think voluntarism and anarcho-capitalism are just two ways of saying the same thing though.

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Brainpolice replied on Mon, Feb 8 2010 3:30 AM

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Hairnet:

Angurse:

Hairnet:

   I said that the rhetoric was dishonest. I don't know you.

I'm a so called "voluntaryist" though.

  I guess it is kind of silly to say that rhetoric can be dishonest. Isn't that a human-specific quality?

  I think that voluntaryism is a dishonest rhetorical term because it makes one's beliefs seem more pluralistic than they can possibly be. I here people say "I am okay with socialism as long as it is voluntary". That doesn't mean anything to a socialist because they think that socialism is voluntary, and capitalism is aggressive against workers.

  If we look at what wikipedia says (if you disagree please say so)-

   "Voluntaryism, or voluntarism,^[1] is a philosophy that opposes anything that it sees as unjustifiably invasive and coercive. Voluntaryism regards government as coercive, and calls for its abolishment, but, unlike a number of other anarchist philosophies, it supports strong property rights which it regards as a natural law that is compatible with non-coercion.

The goal of voluntaryism is the supplantation of the state by a voluntary order, in which political authority is reverted to the individual, and association among people occurs only by mutual consent. Voluntaryists believe voluntaryism itself should be the means to achieve this goal, rather than forceful action."

   This is just Anarcho-Capitalism repackaged to look nicer to certain kinds of personalities. Just like how some people call themselves leftists even though they support market anarchism.  The thing is that there isn't anything voluntary about property rights, violence is required to maintain them. The only people who don't use violence are Tolstoyan pacifists.

 

This is part of why I'm not a voluntaryist, although I think some of my reasons are different from yours (I have "thick libertarian" reasons in addition to the problems of ambiguity). It does reduce to a misleading claim of pluralism in that behind the rhetoric is the presumption of a context of the person's property norms in the first place. So saying "you can peacefully be integrated into my social framework" is misleading when there are fundamentally clashing contexts for what is considered "voluntary". It is "tolerance" only within the boundaries of the systematic context that the other person disagrees with in the first place. The function of this is either trickery to get people to come to your side or simple naivety on the part of the voluntaryist (as in they really don't realize the fundamental incompatibilities in question).

But I also object to voluntaryism (as a manifestation of "thin libertarianism") on the grounds that it often ends up looking like a ridiculous form of reductionism in which all notions of ethics are reduced to nothing but non-aggression (and of course non-aggression is defined through the lense of a particular theory of property rights). I don't buy into the formula, "whatever is voluntary is ethical" - there are things that are nominally voluntary (at least in the weak sense of asquiscence to power given the circumstances) that I consider questionable or oppressive. I find simple "voluntaryness" to be nice-sounding intuitively, but at best it is necessary but insufficient. That is, I'm more of a robust anti-authoritarian than a voluntaryist.

If "voluntaryism" and "pluralism" are stretched in a completely open-ended sense, to the point where any concievable form of government can be absorbed into it, then I think the whole concept of anarchism implodes. You just end up with a somewhat more decentralized framework in which anything ranging from monarchies to democracies control somewhat smaller geographical areas. Any significant basis with which one could possibly distinguish anarchism from non-anarchism dissapears. At best, you're left with localized states, which could, despite the normal senses in which decentralization can be said to be beneficial, be just as and even sometimes more oppresive as any state reigning over a larger geographical area.

So I sort of object to "voluntaryism" from two different angles at once: either it is "fake pluralism" or it is pluralism stretched so far as to render itself superfluous. The closest thing to a resolution that I've seen to this dual-directional issue is what Roderick Long calls "generic universalism, specific pluralism". Or, in my own words, "contextual pluralism". It's a classic philosophical issue of the general vs. the particular, in which too much in either direction seems to collapse. Insisting rigidly on a singular model in too broad a sense becomes hard to distinguish from the basis for a new state. Being completely indifferent to norms in the name of pluralism, however, strikes me as devolving into anomie (which could be compatible with any type of state). I readily admit that if a coherent synthesis that is practical cannot be made, I am forced into the position of a "philosophical anarchist".

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scineram replied on Mon, Feb 8 2010 3:50 AM

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In Restraint of State:

Property rights are indeed voluntary. Why? Sure violence is needed to DEFEND them...but not necessarily to maintain them. See what happened there? If nobody uses violence against you FIRST, then you never need violence to maintain property rights. You need violence to maintain property rights only when someone first uses violence against you

This is true of any ethic or property theory.

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Seph replied on Mon, Feb 8 2010 4:00 AM

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scineram:

In Restraint of State:

Property rights are indeed voluntary. Why? Sure violence is needed to DEFEND them...but not necessarily to maintain them. See what happened there? If nobody uses violence against you FIRST, then you never need violence to maintain property rights. You need violence to maintain property rights only when someone first uses violence against you

This is true of any ethic or property theory.

But only one theory is fully grounded on the concept of self ownership.

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Brainpolice replied on Mon, Feb 8 2010 4:01 AM

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Seph:

scineram:

In Restraint of State:

Property rights are indeed voluntary. Why? Sure violence is needed to DEFEND them...but not necessarily to maintain them. See what happened there? If nobody uses violence against you FIRST, then you never need violence to maintain property rights. You need violence to maintain property rights only when someone first uses violence against you

This is true of any ethic or property theory.

 

But only one theory is fully grounded on the concept of self ownership.

The concept of self-ownership is itself ungrounded, or at best circular and cartesian. I already went in circles on these forums about that issue long ago though, so I'm not going to repeat that in detail now.

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AJ replied on Mon, Feb 8 2010 5:48 AM

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Good points all on voluntarism. It's just the same old definitions game as all the rest. In the end it all hinges on the definition of "aggression," "involuntary," etc.

John Hasnas's common-law conception of anarchy is looking better and better. It is the only theory that seems to account for everything and explain how and why it will all work. I still hold to anti-monopolism as the basis, but I believe common law will be what results from having no monopolies.

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Angurse replied on Mon, Feb 8 2010 6:45 AM

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Brainpolice:

If "voluntaryism" and "pluralism" are stretched in a completely open-ended sense, to the point where any concievable form of government can be absorbed into it, then I think the whole concept of anarchism implodes. You just end up with a somewhat more decentralized framework in which anything ranging from monarchies to democracies control somewhat smaller geographical areas. Any significant basis with which one could possibly distinguish anarchism from non-anarchism dissapears. At best, you're left with localized states, which could, despite the normal senses in which decentralization can be said to be beneficial, be just as and even sometimes more oppresive as any state reigning over a larger geographical area.

Thats really the point, less rigidity more competition, also there isn't any reason why you couldn't have overlapping governments within any one region, so the idea it being more oppressive than any state seems silly. Anarchism in the classical form simply isn't obtainable, nor desirable in my opinion.