Could anarchy work in human society?

liberty student:

MacFall:

liberty student:

Right, so double top , got it.  But that's sorta my point. If everyone has to be individually vetted, how is this supposed to grow to any meaningful mass?

 

Wait, do you think we have access to some vast, secret underground that we're not sharing? Because we don't. There may not be anything in your area.

Danno sent me a message through the forums, reminding me to be a little more discreet.  Sorry if I pressured you to post any details.  Feel free to edit your post.

 

Are you being facetious? :/

If not, don't worry about it. I'm not doing anything illegal.

Yet.

Much. 

MacFall:

Are you being facetious? :/

No.  But it's all good.  I might have a contribution to make to your almanac for non-US folks, specifically Canadians.

I'm not against Agorism per se.  But the arguments that some Agorists are making, really get to me.

 

 

I agree with you that agorist argumentation leaves a lot to be desired. While I agree with Niccolo about political libertarianism, I don't think we're going to accomplish anything by refusing to share our knowledge and combine our assets with those who wish to vote for change. I also don't think we're going to convince everyone that they should be agorists because it is more ethical from the standpoint of non-aggression - most people don't have any idea what that means (thanks mostly to government schools, I think). And I also don't believe that people in general will buy into economic secession until the counter-economy has more to offer. I am working on the latter as much as I can, and in the meantime I focus on pointing out how a person can benefit personally from agorism, both in theory and in practice.

Furthermore: holy spork, I made a LOT of grammatical mistakes in that big long post on the last page.

/commences self-flagellation

MacFall:

A libertarian executive AND congress - that's a pipe dream.

This would take only ~300 people willing to run and devote their fortunes.  I look at what Newt Gingrich did with the Contract with America, and I'm thinking it's definitely not a pipe dream, but rather strategically doable.

MacFall:

I'm working on a counter-economic almanac, and an agorist craigslist.

Excellent, that's the type of thing I thought might be useful, when I asked about such stuff in another thread.

 

liberty student:

Right.  But did you really believe he stood a reasonable chance of winning?

I was there for the wake - the election night party for Jesse Ventura.  Nobody expected him to win, we were hoping for a good show at the polls.  When he made his acceptance speech, it was remarkably clear - he'd made no plans, had no expectation of winning, was more shocked than anyone else in the room.

That's probably one of my fondest memories.

Never tear your tickets up until the race results are official.

Danno

liberty student:

On the contrary, I went back and read my post.  I don't think it is packed with strawmen.

It sounded as if you where reponding to that it would be better if everyone was a communist then having minarchists around. That is not what I said. Just that the minarchists could be more usefull for liberty and less usefull for the state if they where anarchists.

liberty student:

Now this reads like wishful thinking to me.  A state will not collapse in the absence of major social or economic problems.  The state won't allow it's citizens to out-evolve it.  Not when it controls industry, health care, education etc.

If my loved one has cancer, and I have to go to the state for treatment, because the equipment, drugs and doctors are not available in the agora, then I will.  And so will most other rational creatures.  We will compromise.  That's how torture works.  That's how coercion works.

Governments controls only a little more then what the people let it control. That you may have to use some roads and hospitals belonging to the government every now and then doesn't really change this. They back down rather then risk a revolt. Unless it's a military dictatorship in which case retrat may mean loosing control of the army and thus loosing control allthogeter and it becomes a non option for the government. But such governments fall eventually anyhow.

liberty student:

I'd like some anecdotal evidence of a government collapsing and anarchy emerging.  Has it ever happened before?  Or was the power vacuum filled by another regime, another state?

Not on that scale. But the sociademocrat party here in Sweden have been de-regulating the market steadily for about 20 years doing lots of stuff that is contradictory to there supposed ideology. They do it because they are afraid to be put out of office if they don't, not because they think it's right. Untill the last election in which they did loose power to the right wing opposition, which was the worst thing that could happen. Because now the right-wing parties are so afraid of loosing power they don't implement any of there ideas. Instead they just try to be better socialists then the socialists. Since they have no right-wing opposition breathing down there necks they have also managed to become better socialists then the socialists...

 

Danno:

Like that wouldn't work - people are too smart to fall for such lines.  Feh.

Yeah actually they are. When McDonald's are the ones telling the lines. I don't think any private firm have every done business in the way you describe and it would never work.

This will fail already on the first argument of overlooking economies of scale. Cause when it grown beyond its optimal size it will be inneffecient and more expensive then it's compeitiors and people will go away.

The second argument will also fail cause they will simply go to a different security firm that don't want this extra support from them. Since they can do this as easily as changing there house insurance getting that kind of loyalty from your customers will be almost impossible.

The third argument may work against some but is very difficult to implement. You can't paint out a mixed group of regular people that does nothing to interfere with your clients as the enemy. You may be able to play on ethical or economic differences against one or two other security firms but not all of the competition so it will do you no good.

Danno:

The only anarchy that wouldn't have to work hard to prevent that would be a very small market.  The larger the market, the better such things work.

A small market may very well have a single provider of security or just a handfull. This does create stability issues and consumers have to be much more vigilant about what these companies are doing, cause the balance from free competition will not be able to do it for them as well as on a large market.
A small territory with anarchy would also need a fake government to function in the international community but that is a different issue.

If the market is larger and there are 100s of security providers it will be pretty impossible to emerge a state in this area. Unless you do it in some form of gated community but that wouldn't really be a state and it doesn't pose much of a problem. It will have the vigilante eyes of 100s of security firms on it making sure that it doesn't expand outside it's property and they would also be trying to prevent losing there customers to these communites. Digging up dirt on them and explaining to consumers why there model is better then moving into some gated community state.

Every political revolution in history (good or bad) have been able to taken place because there have been a crappy government in place messing up peoples lives. They don't happen in rich, functioning and unoppressive societies which anarchy would be. Now if there is a foreing invasion, natural disaster, plauge or deep economic crisis, then yes there are a stability problems. But any society has serious stability problems under those conditions.

 

Ego:

Under the ideal system, we'd have the exact same government we have now... except it can't initiate the use of force! This means...

• it must raise money through fundraisers, advertisements, voluntary charitable donations, etc.
  
• it can't enact price controls, wage controls, etc.

 I still find this scenario troubling for the same reasons we have now. Governments should not be in the business of advertising and raising money. For one reason, government largely exists to perpetuate itself, which means coming up with all manner of emotional manipulation, fearmongering, and irrational justifications for the "need" to raise money for the "public good."

A second problem is that government is too inefficient even if they could be trusted with the money because the economy is too complex for a central planning bureaucracy to deal with. I'm not sure why private industry couldn't meet these needs much more efficiently and voluntarily even if government could be trusted as a benevolent father figure (which they can't be).

Ego:

In other words, most of these "impossible" scenarios would play out much the same as they would today. Technically, this is anarchy. However, it's much more palatable for people who (understandably) associate "anarchy" with black-flag-waving leftist thugs.

This is mostly a result of ignorance. I wouldn't favor a pseudo-government system just because people lack the education to understand anarcho-capitalism.

Zeddicus:

Every political revolution in history (good or bad) have been able to taken place because there have been a crappy government in place messing up peoples lives. They don't happen in rich, functioning and unoppressive societies which anarchy would be. Now if there is a foreing invasion, natural disaster, plauge or deep economic crisis, then yes there are a stability problems. But any society has serious stability problems under those conditions.

Actually the American and French revolution took place because of the immense wealth of the upper classes in both countries. The Kingdom of France may have been ruined by 1789, but the wealth of the bourgeois classes had grown throughout the 18th century.

On the other hand plenty of crappy governments have ruined people's lives throughout history without anyone raising a finger against them.