Try watching this, I got to the end of Anarchy, and I was getting ticked off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODJfwa9XKZQ
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
What ticked you off? It was a perfect example of anarchy in practice.
Anarcho-liberalism and socialism are theories and can be used as critique of the Status Quo but as a practical solution they do not work. Anarchy always leads to authoritarianism.
You beat me to it. I doubled posted this link, though with a slightly different discussion.
I've critisized this video already when it was posted on a myspace libertarian board. The notion of a Republic is more or less an illusion, it is just a watered down democratic state that nonetheless is still an oligarchy. All states are oligarchies in one form or another. The video also is highly unfair towards anarchism (with images of riots and bombs and all), and it makes no sense whatsoever to place anarchism on "the far right". Nor does it make any sense to place fascists on "the far left". Blaming anarchism on the rise of Lenin and Hitler makes no sense whatsoever either. This spectrum replaces one set of fallacies with another. A republic doesn't exist in the practical sense, since there is no such thing as a pure "rule by law" with no influence of men.
Brainpolice:it makes no sense whatsoever to place anarchism on "the far right". Nor does it make any sense to place fascists on "the far left"
The spectrum they used was more and less government. I guess they could have used other terminology like "more or less" or "up and down". Either way, they presented the spectrum clearly.
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty
Prove it, why don't you (I don't care about socialism, it is enmeshed in the status quo, so feel free to skip it.)
-Jon
To darkness I condemn you...
Tell me where anarchy has led to a free liberal democratic society? Please tell me how anarchy can work in practice?
Jon Irenicus: Anarcho-liberalism and socialism are theories and can be used as critique of the Status Quo but as a practical solution they do not work. Anarchy always leads to authoritarianism. Prove it, why don't you (I don't care about socialism, it is enmeshed in the status quo, so feel free to skip it.) -Jon
I've never heard of the term "anarcho-liberalism" in the first place. Anarcho-liberalism? I don't believe anyone actually identifies with that label.
In either case, even if it is true that a state will eventually arise out of anarchy, it hardly makes any sense to support existing states as a solution to the possibility of states arising in the future. It is precisely this attitude which helps states to arise, to institutionalize themselves as states qua states. If one's concern is with authoritarianism arising, then why does one side with the authoritarians when it comes down to them arising? One could argue that political revolutions to overthrow a tyranny often lead to the establishment of new tyrannies, but that's not the same thing as anarchism. It's an effect of political democracy. It is very disingenous to conflate anarchy with political democratic levelings.
You're dodging my request for proof, namely, why market anarchism will lead to authoritarianism.
I don't think the goal of market anarchists is to create a liberal democratic society...it certainly isn't mine.
Jon Irenicus: You're dodging my request for proof, namely, why market anarchism will lead to authoritarianism. -Jon
There is a risk of that happening but only on the condition that the essence of market anarchism is abandoned and a general ideology in favor of the establishment of authoritarianism is sustained. It is misleading to claim that it inevitably will lead to authoritarianism. It would be more fair and accurate to say that there can be a risk of that occuring. But that makes it conditional.
Those who are so concerned about authoritarianism arising again are actually making a self-fulfilling prophecy, or by the very least they are sustaining or enabling currently existing authoritarianism through their fear.
The proof is in the pudding, I anarchy the human being will look to protection against its neighbor, the Hobbesian nightmare vision, just as was shown in the YouTube video. A very good example of this theory is what happened in Iraq after the Americans overthrew Saddam, the country was virtually thrown into pure anarchy.
Anarchism is as Utopian as is socialism. Non functional political systems.
IOW, you really don't know what you're talking about. I recommend reading The Market for Liberty and For a New Liberty, then coming back. It'd be cool to see if you still make the same grandiose, ignorant claims.
BP, I want to see if he actually has bothered to even study what market anarchists advocate, as opposed to erecting strawmen.
Libertarianpaternalist? Contradiction in terms! :D
Yours in liberty,Geoffrey Allan Plauché, Ph.D.Adjunct InstructorBuena Vista University
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"(Who watches the watchmen?)-Juvenal, Satires VI.347
What isn't nonsense in that video is oversimplified. The bit about anarchy is the standard nonsense taught in political science.
Jon Irenicus: IOW, you really don't know what you're talking about. I recommend reading The Market for Liberty and For a New Liberty, then coming back. It'd be cool to see if you still make the same grandiose, ignorant claims. BP, I want to see if he actually has bothered to even study what market anarchists advocate, as opposed to erecting strawmen. -Jon
Yea. No offense intended, but I don't think that they are even fundamentally read up on this question and are spouting the old cliche arguments that nearly everyone makes.
The oxymoron Libertarian Paternalist is an alias I use, it was invented by Cass/Sunstein in their article "Libertarian Paternalism" and most recently in their bookk Nudge, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. A better alias might be Libertarian Pragmatist since i am not interested in libertarian theory but making society more freer both on a social and economic level.
Most libertarians seem to hold the free market dimension as being the only dimension of libertarianism. As being a pragmatic libertarian I understand that in real life you need to have certain basic standards of welfare, otherwise you will see a revolution or a populist movement such in Venezuela and Bolivia rising taking away property.
Utopia is not for me, hence anarchy in the market place would never work. A total and free market always leads to monopolies, the economic version of the Hobbesian state, even Adam Smith warned against monopolies and held they were to be discourage. Adam Smiths the invincible hand was never invincible, at least not to Adam Smith. .
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libertarianpaternalist: A very good example of this theory is what happened in Iraq after the Americans overthrew Saddam, the country was virtually thrown into pure anarchy.
A very good example of this theory is what happened in Iraq after the Americans overthrew Saddam, the country was virtually thrown into pure anarchy.
All that this example can possibly prove is that anarchy will result in chaos if the state disappears over night. This example cannot invalidate the possibility of anarchism, nor is it an intellectually serious attempt to do so.
I vividly remember my 8th grade social studies teacher asking my class one day why it was that we needed a government. She chose to answer this question by posing another question: what would happen if we woke up tomorrow and the government no longer existed? Looking back now, I can see why she was teaching in a middle school and not a university.
Joe Sobran talked a bit about this in his article The Reluctant Anarchist. That Randians and conservatives were deluded into think there are rational limits to government and that it was realistic to persue that. That government has some nature or natural state in which it is supposed to be in. Conveniently, it never has and never will... besides being completely preposterous. It's more true that the state exists itself in a state of anarchy. But because this is unilateral, the people under the guns don't also exist in a similar way.
Libertarianpaternalist: I think you mean invisible hand. And how can you be against a Hobbesian Leviathan to begin with you if accept his terms that men are naturally at war? The truth is that there are no such things as monopolies in the free market. Even in a mixed economy, 100 percent of monopolies are tied to government. If this is not true, I challenge you to name one free market monopoly.
Yeah, cute assertions. Too bad none of them hold up. Go on believing they do. Just don't have the audacity to call yourself a libertarian. You're not one. I don't give a damn what Smith thought about monopolies, BTW - Austrians have greatly advanced monopoly theory. You're the utopian here.
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