Question for all small govt/minarchist ppl (1 Viewer)

[volition]

Well, a private firm would only become a government once it has enough capital and resources. They could use some interesting structures, undercover agreements and so on to arrange that, so their true strength is hidden.

Of course I don't know whether this happens in practice.

Extremely unlikely and costly. What would they actually gain out of it anyway? When there is some hugely overwhelming force coming, people would just pull a 'scorched russian' defence anyway, take the valuables, burn the buildings and run. The idiotic firm doing this wouldn't make money out of it.

Other DROs (dispute resolution organisations) could all band together and stop the rogue one. Anyway, in order to get enough resources to get big enough to launch this kind of attack, they'd have to have so many customers already! Its likely that whenever one DRO gets big, they won't get any more customers because people would be worried about it becoming a govt. Other DROs would have an incentive to advertise this fact, so that potential customers might not go to that company.

When a government with adequate control over the nation says something, it happens. (This isn't meant to be taken too literally.)

Except that such a solution invades other peoples property rights? Govts hardly ever pick the winners anyway, so when it tries to dictate policy, there's often something better they could have done. In fact, its impossible to know if the govt solution is the best, because it was coerced.

Well, why doesn't the bank just hire someone to go kill you? They'd have all the money in the world essentially, and be able to cover stuff up.

I think we're getting a little too remote and crazy here.

The bank wouldn't hire someone to come and kill this guy cos society is so interconnected that people would know he was killed. There's a high chance that the bank could be found out and lose everything. Besides, even if a bank killed a guy, his assets would go to whoever he left it to in his will, so the bank wouldn't be able to just take it. Whoever had the claim to it can sue the bank. But really.. this scenario is just ridiculous.

Another question I have is what about the less profitable infrastructure? Would the road outside my house become a toll road, or would I have to pay a road-keeping company virtual taxes to use it? A company with a monopoly on something so vital, without regulation, could become just as bad as the government, with so much control, by merely putting clauses in contracts. Power corrupts, and a good government structure is designed to ensure noone has too much power. A government monopoly is designed to give fair access to everyone. Would private companies do the same? I don't think so.

Its impossible to know the future in this way, so I can't really tell you what the arrangement would be.

In the roads example, you could potentially have any of:
- Everyone on a street gets together and organises road maintenance
- Private road companies owning sections of road
- Roads maintained by the companies they lead to: in the same way that shopping centres maintain carparks now, cos they know people would rather come to a pleasant place with nice carparks rather than just some crappy wilderness exposed to the cold and rain.

'by merely putting clauses in the contracts' - they still have to voluntarily agreed to

do you really think things as they are give "fair access to everyone" or that there could ever really be a way to ensure that nobody in govt has "too much power"? Look at how the rest of the population is disarmed (gun control) and without any defence.

There's a value to the idea of a 'balance of power' - notice how no countries holding nuclear weapons declare war against each other? The 'balance of power' in anarcho-capitalism is the DROs competing against each other on price and service to earn your money. Govts aren't a 'balance of power', they're just one gang being given nearly god-like powers over everyone else.

 

[banco55]

You sound like a communist circa 1910 talking about how the inevitable Communist world revolution will solve this problem and that.

 

[volition]

You sound like a communist circa 1910 talking about how the inevitable Communist world revolution will solve this problem and that.

Well I obviously I don't know for sure exactly how things will work under anarcho-capitalism, I can only offer possibilities based on what I think is likely.

As for sounding like a communist, I think the difference is that I don't claim to be able to force the solution to everything in the way that a communist might have suggested that the govt would be made/able to fix everything.

What's your point anyway?

 

[banco55]

Well I obviously I don't know for sure exactly how things will work under anarcho-capitalism, I can only offer possibilities based on what I think is likely.

As for sounding like a communist, I think the difference is that I don't claim to be able to force the solution to everything in the way that a communist might have suggested that the govt would be made/able to fix everything.

What's your point anyway?

By "sound like a communist circa 1910" I mean you are counting on these very abstract ideas being able to work in practice (and not just work but work well). This despite the fact that nothing resembling an anarcho-capitalistic society has ever existed (I don't think the vikings count).

Remember Marx had a number of predictions about what a communist society woud look like and almost none of them came true. Rather the people subjected to communism were usually substansially worse off. Of course you can argue that communism wasn't executed properly, that the leaders were corrupt. But if you need perfect conditions for a communist revolution to be sucessful then it's not a good system of government.

It's fine to posit all the ways in which the contradictions/problems with anarcho-capitalism can be sorted out but to want to reform society on that model with these theories that really amount to little more then wishful thinking would be nuts. It becomes sort of like medieval theology where they would try to imagine what god is like and noone was wrong because the theory could never be tested.

In any case I expect you will grow out fo your enthusiasm for anarcho-capitalism in a few years.

 

[volition]

By "sound like a communist circa 1910" I mean you are counting on these very abstract ideas being able to work in practice (and not just work but work well). This despite the fact that nothing resembling an anarcho-capitalistic society has ever existed (I don't think the vikings count).

Remember Marx had a number of predictions about what a communist society woud look like and almost none of them came true. Rather the people subjected to communism were usually substansially worse off. Of course you can argue that communism wasn't executed properly, that the leaders were corrupt. But if you need perfect conditions for a communist revolution to be sucessful then it's not a good system of government.

It's fine to posit all the ways in which the contradictions/problems with anarcho-capitalism can be sorted out but to want to reform society on that model with these theories that really amount to little more then wishful thinking would be nuts. It becomes sort of like medieval theology where they would try to imagine what god is like and noone was wrong because the theory could never be tested.

In any case I expect you will grow out fo your enthusiasm for anarcho-capitalism in a few years.

So you're basically saying that we'll never find a system better than democracy? Your criticism could be applied to ANY system. In fact, its hard to see where your actual opposition to it is. You're basically saying "oh its so different and we haven't seen anything like it before, therefore it wouldn't work".

The fact that Marx had some predictions and was eventually wrong, has NO bearing on the fact that I (and other anarcho-capitalists) have predictions eventually being proven wrong. You need to actually show me where the system is unworkable if you're saying the system is unworkable.

Even if anarcho-capitalism is a flawed system, its still preferable to the current one where there's basically a 100% chance of eventual failure (once you start a govt up, the growth towards huge govts is inevitable, we all know what happens under communism).

Half of these problems like "who's going to look after the poor?" are not even that relevant. Let me give you an example of what this is like:
Say slavery is legal, and there are these people who want to outlaw it. The slave owners don't like this and so they say "Oh wait, what if when the slaves are free they can't find a job? They should stay slaves so at least they get fed". It STILL makes sense to outlaw slavery doesn't it? Because its wrong!

Ok, yeah its possible I will grow out of my enthusiasm for it, but how about you actually pose a problem with it rather than just saying "oh you'll get over it".

Just a general comment to everyone:
It is wrong that you and I face govt violence/threat of violence on a daily basis. Our living in this system is in no way an acceptance of the violence. Say you're this kung fu master and one guy on a dark street comes up to you and tries to mug you, here you have a chance to actually fight back. But imagine you're walking down the street and 20 guys ambush you, with sniper rifles and helicopters overhead and they've got rocket launchers too. The fact that you choose not to fight here does not mean you were not being mugged. You just (quite sensibly) realised that your chances were next to zero, so you just gave them 40% of the contents of your wallet rather than get killed.

Too often I hear people saying "yea well people obviously accept it anyway", but govts are much more like the second scenario with 20 guys armed to the teeth, rather than 1 unarmed dude. Govt apologists mistake the fact that people don't get out there and violently resist (because that would be suicide) for an acceptance of the way govt conducts business (which is in a violent manner in case you haven't noticed).

A question to everyone who thinks the state is 'wanted' by everyone: If everybody really WANTED the state to exist, then why do they even need guns and prisons to threaten us to make us do their bidding? Obviously we would willingly follow its commands if we ACTUALLY liked the state and its crazy laws and interference. Why the hell is all the violence necessary?

 

[_dhj_]

I still find it hard to believe that anyone with common sense and an understanding of human nature can believe that your ideal state of anarchy is sustainable or realistic, and at the same time believe that our current system has "basically a 100% chance of eventual failure"... by turning into communism. Btw, there is no government in a communist society, and communism for obvious reasons like 'anarcho-capitalism' has never been realised.

 

[volition]

I still find it hard to believe that anyone with common sense and an understanding of human nature can believe that your ideal state of anarchy is sustainable or realistic, and at the same time believe that our current system has "basically a 100% chance of eventual failure"... by turning into communism. Btw, there is no government in a communist society, and communism for obvious reasons like 'anarcho-capitalism' has never been realised.

Misunderstand human nature? Well I could say the same for people who, while they understand that power corrupts, think that the solution to this problem is to create one massive gang so that evil people can go and use it to bludgeon other people. But noooo, people in govt never do the wrong thing do they? At least under anarcho-capitalism, the balance of power concept will keep anyone from getting out of line.

Let's have less of these idiots who go to war "because God told them to" and command violence against the public to pay for a war that shouldn't have been fought. So much for separation of powers hey?

And it doesn't have to be ACTUAL communism, I just mean huge govt involvement in general. Huge govt involvement up at those levels would surely fail just as communism did, for pretty much the same reasons. (calculation problem once again) Along with next to zero incentive to actually provide functional services. Seriously, who changes the oil on a rental car?

 

[_dhj_]

Misunderstand human nature? Well I could say the same for people who, while they understand that power corrupts, think that the solution to this problem is to create one massive gang so that evil people can go and use it to bludgeon other people. But noooo, people in govt never do the wrong thing do they? At least under anarcho-capitalism, the balance of power concept will keep anyone from getting out of line.

If it is balance of power you are looking for, at least under our current system the balance of power between the three layers of government, the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, law enforcement, regulatory bodies and watchdogs combine in a mechanism that is relatively transparent, logical and accountable. The existence of rival gangs, corporations, DROs or whatever friendly sounding name you want to call them, is not preferable as a 'balance of power' concept. Under such a society there can be no guarantees and protections to inevitable exertions of will between the actors.

 

[circusmind]

The fact that Marx had some predictions and was eventually wrong, has NO bearing on the fact that I (and other anarcho-capitalists) have predictions eventually being proven wrong. You need to actually show me where the system is unworkable if you're saying the system is unworkable.

Extreme leftists make castle-in-the-sky predictions about an unworkable utopian system. You do the same thing, just with the added provision that your endlessly intricate utopian system will in fact emerge spontaneously out of a power vacuum.

I'll take my relatively accountable, civilised government (for all your talk of government violence, i am personally rarely harrassed in the street by blackhawks) over your corporate warlord, thanks.

 

[volition]

Under such a society there can be no guarantees and protections to inevitable exertions of will between the actors.

Do you honestly believe that there are guarantees and protections now? For one, there's obviously no guarantees of property right protection, the govt is free to increase taxes as it pleases.

There's no solution to the problem of human corruption except freedom of association and competition. You can't impose any monolithic agency (govt) that will solve human corruption and the desire for power.

Extreme leftists make castle-in-the-sky predictions about an unworkable utopian system. You do the same thing, just with the added provision that your endlessly intricate utopian system will in fact emerge spontaneously out of a power vacuum.

I'll take my relatively accountable, civilised government (for all your talk of government violence, i am personally rarely harrassed in the street by blackhawks) over your corporate warlord, thanks.

Ok now you're just pulling a banco55 on me. It's not 'endlessly intricate', and even if it were an intricate system, that doesn't mean it wouldn't work. The fact that it is 'extreme' does not mean it won't work either. For you to say its unworkable, you actually have to tell me why, not just "omg its so extreme and intricate". I've managed to answer everything thrown at me so far, so why just resort to emotional appeals now?

If I wanted to pay out communism, I could actually point out areas that ARE unworkable. Like how I'm always harping on about the calculation problem (communism has no price mechanism for capital goods).

I'm amused by this talk of a 'power vacuum', what do you mean when you say that?

As for how you aren't harassed on the street by blackhawks... that's just cos the threat isn't as visible. When people pay their taxes, they know its not because they're being held at gunpoint at the moment they do it, they're paying their taxes because they know, DOWN THE LINE that the govt will shoot them/lock them up if they don't do it. So sure, when you don't pay your taxes they'll be nice to you at the start, but give em time, they'll send you a letter for a court appearance, ignore them and you're eventually headed for prison/rape rooms.

 

[kime]

"Anarcho"-capitalism is unworkable for a few main reasons, despite the obvious oxymoron in its name. Capitaism requires a government to function.

Remove the state protections currently offered to workers and transfer everyhting to private property and a few problems will immediately emerge. Firstly, workers will be paid pennies for working 20 hour days and children as young as five will be sent down mines to die, much like the Industrial Revolution. Say I'm a worker, I'm going to be come extremely dissatisfied. I have no protection and no money. It is time for a strike. I don't imagine the strike will last long because the industrialists will hire a superior police force due to the buying power they have and the strike will quickly be broken (and I imagine quite a few workers killed in the process). The workers, still fed up, arm themselves, because there are no laws forbidding weaponry. the next morning they march on the factory and demand better pay and conditions. The capitalists are not happy, so they get their pirvate mercenaries who are better trianed and armed than the workers to stop them. chaos ensues and many people die. The system is unworkable.

Nest problem is the establishment of monopolies. The capitalist whose workers produce the most is going to have the most buying power and with this they can buy other corporations, thus increasing their wealth. Continue this cycle and soon they will have enough welath to buy just about everything, reforming a state with themselves in government.

For capitalism to function it requires government, and not just a minarchist government. A large government is required to keep the people satisfied with the system as the free market can never work.

 

[volition]

Remove the state protections currently offered to workers and transfer everything to private property and a few problems will immediately emerge. Firstly, workers will be paid pennies for working 20 hour days and children as young as five will be sent down mines to die, much like the Industrial Revolution.

You obviously don't understand how economics works. Your statement is suggesting that the only thing keeping wages and conditions up now is the govt, when in fact it is actually the productivity of the economy and of firms themselves. The govt does not produce things, it steals them and regulates them. The govt cannot create something from nothing, and so any conditions that exist in the real world are what it is stuck with.

Companies are made to pay more and more because they have to compete for our labour. Capitalism helps the poor much more than govts ever will, because it is what creates more and more competition for their labour, competing the price for their labour up. It may have been the case that in the past (and in 3rd world countries not embracing capitalism) that conditions and pay were/are poor, and the best solution to this is to actually let the market decide.

For example, workplaces are inclined to be safe because if accidents happen, then their insurance premiums rise. Also, over time, as the economy gains strength, then employees can take their labour elsewhere. But this can only happen over time, a govt cannot 'enforce' these things efficiently. It will only distort markets, leaving more in poverty than before it intervened.

Take for example the welfare state in the USA, I've heard that poverty was actually dropping, but then when the welfare state was brought in, they stopped experiencing this decrease in poverty.

Nest problem is the establishment of monopolies. The capitalist whose workers produce the most is going to have the most buying power and with this they can buy other corporations, thus increasing their wealth. Continue this cycle and soon they will have enough wealth to buy just about everything, reforming a state with themselves in government.

Not true, under capitalism it will always pay to create what the people want. It won't realistically be possible to actually buy EVERY single possible outlet and factor good for a given product. It will always pay for a new firm to spring up in place.

Not just that, but a lot of the work done in setting up networks and getting products will already have been done and demonstrated by your supposed 'monopoly firm', so this monopoly firm will just be losing money. The 2nd firm will just be able to use already existing connections, networks and methods and undercut the 1st one. In capitalism, you only stay up as long as your customers want your product.

Another problem: if you have a problem with monopolies, you should also have a problem with govts, it is also a monopoly. Not only that, it is a monopoly of the worst kind, a coercive one. Free market corporations are not coercive.

 

[volition]

Kime: with the monopolies another thing I wanted to add with price fixing is

The same greed that drives people to collude and price fix - is the same greed that will entice them to undercut their price fixing buddies. This holds especially true when you have a stock market and futures market, you'll find that the price will adjust back to its normal market price within a few days. This is all without govt interference, its when you have govts that firms can increase entry barriers to that market or create licensing requirements that make it harder for their competition to do business.


If you have a problem with monopolies, then you have also a huge problem with govts, which are a coercive monopoly.

 

[flappinghippo]

Are you saying the world is getting worse?

For example, your talk of wars as an indication of how bad things are is kind of silly. The occurence of wars has dramatically gone down; less people are dying, less people are uprooted. You say in an anarcho-capitalist society there'd be no wars because there'd be no incentive to do so. Well, shit, this is already happening with the blurring of nation states under increasing globalisation. My point is that although they still happen, they aren't nearly as much (or as costly) in the grand scope of history, and there's no reason to suggest the trend is going to somehow reverse.

In fact, life is pretty goddamn good. The roadmap to prosperity has been laid out; our systems facilitate a standard of living on a scope never ever seen before; people are living longer, healthier; developing countries are developing faster than developed ones. The world is getting better, not worse.

Also, am I mistaken or did socialism and big government reach their peak in the USA, UK etc. until Reagan and Thatcher? I thought they started stripping government size? In due democratic process? In which case that would go against your thesis of governments growing forever because it strips people's rights?

I am all for fixing the flaws in our current system; but I believe they can be fixed utilising the process that got us here in the first place. You advocate a radical system that appears to provide a solution to every single problem evident today, but what's the point of throwing in all the dice, all the progress made, for what is ultimately a social experiment? (COMMUNISM cough COMMUNISM COMMUNISM)

Once all the world lives like us, maybe we should consider it. Until then, I don't think we should head-fuck the whole incumbent system so that flaws might get resolved. Slow and steady wins the race.

 

[circusmind]

Ok now you're just pulling a banco55 on me. It's not 'endlessly intricate', and even if it were an intricate system, that doesn't mean it wouldn't work. The fact that it is 'extreme' does not mean it won't work either. For you to say its unworkable, you actually have to tell me why, not just "omg its so extreme and intricate". I've managed to answer everything thrown at me so far, so why just resort to emotional appeals now?

All your answers are impossibly utopian. You will never be able to address fundamental issues like law enforcement, growing corporate power, the environment, provision of services to rural areas etc., because the market simply does not work in these scenarios.

I'm amused by this talk of a 'power vacuum', what do you mean when you say that?

It's what happens when the state disappears. You can tell, because there'll be some dickhead with an AK-47 on your 6 o'clock news shooting at some other dickhead.

As for how you aren't harassed on the street by blackhawks... that's just cos the threat isn't as visible. When people pay their taxes, they know its not because they're being held at gunpoint at the moment they do it, they're paying their taxes because they know, DOWN THE LINE that the govt will shoot them/lock them up if they don't do it. So sure, when you don't pay your taxes they'll be nice to you at the start, but give em time, they'll send you a letter for a court appearance, ignore them and you're eventually headed for prison/rape rooms.

Wait...wait...weren't you saying earlier how it was ridiculous for me to claim that people are only civil to each other because there is an understanding that the state will enforce law? How can you have it both ways?

As a sidenote, I can't see how an anarchist system would lead to a lessening of coercion.....just a multiplication of the entities who are allowed to coerce you.

 

[flappinghippo]

Let's look at defense. You say everything is voluntary. Say 80% of the world "voluntarily" becomes anarcho-capitalist (yeah right, but anyway), the other 20% remain distinct nation states run by kleptocracies/dictatorships/theocracies. Let's say nation-state Russia builds some nuclear weapons as a threat to steal shit from you; "Give us your fuckin cash or you and your neighbours go kaboom."

What happens? Everyone else bandies together, writes contracts? What if some people get scared and don't play ball, instead they just want to give in? Are there guidelines you must follow from a contract you signed about invasions by foreign bodies?

Does everyone impose trade sanctions? So what happens if conglomerate bodies that can exist without outside trade (ie. Russia 2 decades ago) point a gun to the head of the world?

I say we leave defense and foreign policy as government powers.

 

[jb_nc]

how completely delusional does one need to be to hold the belief that any form of anarchism would work?

 

[volition]

flaminghippo: with the talk about how stuff is getting better, not worse... That's fine, it can still be getting better - but it'd be getting better faster under anarcho-capitalism. What I'm arguing is that anarchy > govts

Also, am I mistaken or did socialism and big government reach their peak in the USA, UK etc. until Reagan and Thatcher? I thought they started stripping government size?

To take the example of Reagan, although he campaigned as a free market person, its still questionable whether that's what he ended up doing. He spent a lot of money, increasing govt spending massively

You advocate a radical system that appears to provide a solution to every single problem evident today, but what's the point of throwing in all the dice, all the progress made, for what is ultimately a social experiment? (COMMUNISM cough COMMUNISM COMMUNISM)

As a system, it makes sense that people sorta want to see how it would solve problems, so I'm just showing you how it might work.

What do you mean, 'social experiment'?

Let's say nation-state Russia builds some nuclear weapons as a threat to steal shit from you; "Give us your fuckin cash or you and your neighbours go kaboom."

First of all: Remember we're comparing govts with anarchy here (not anarchy with 'perfection'), so what solution do you think govts would have to this? Not many govts have even managed to successfuly defend their nation from invasion: (i'll paste from an article here)

Finally, can anyone out there show me any examples of a government successfully defending its population from violence? France in 1789? Russia in 1917? Germany in 1933? Poland in 1939? France in 1940? England which, after winning the war against national socialism, imposed socialism on its own population? America, which subsidizes and arms dictatorships and currently has more than 200 troop bases around the world stirring up anti-US rage? What about the Civil War, which murdered 600,000 Americans without even effectively freeing the slaves? The First World War, which caused the Second? Did America emerge from the Cold War more free or less free? (Hint: taxes, debt and regulations!) Did Korea or Vietnam end the Soviet regime? Of course not – the inefficiency of central planning did. What about World War Two? In 1950, more people were enslaved by dictatorships than in 1939 – despite 40 million murdered! So how can anyone say that governments protect their citizens? Violence begets violence. All states do is wage wars, raise taxes and enslave their populations with debts and regulation. Knowing that governments murdered 170 million people during the 20th century, we can all be forgiven for a little skepticism when we hear the argument that governments protect their citizens.

Ok as one possible measure (dunno how well this one would work, so gimme some feedback on it): maybe everyone in a region all contributes to a DRO which maintains a nuclear warhead or two, just to prevent other nations from nuking them. No nation with a nuclear warhead has ever had war declared against it, so it could be effective.

But even if you don't like this solution, The Stateless society article has a solution which i'll paste part of here:

Suppose Canada decides to invade a government-free US. The Canadian PM starts making threatening speeches and massing troops along the border.

How could the stateless society respond? Well, DROs are the agencies most threatened by invasion, because if the Canadian government takes over, they will be the first to go. So let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a group of worried DRO leaders. What would we do?

First, we would get to the root of the problem, which is that the Canadian PM is the person responsible for fermenting war. Given this fact, we would avoid threatening Canada’s troops or its general population, who are not the problem, and have no power to prevent the invasion. If we threaten the troops, we’ll make them more belligerent – and if we threaten the general population, we’ll make them more supportive of the war.

So how can we defuse the situation? Here are some ideas (in escalating order):
1. Declare that, if the troops are not disbanded, no offensive action will be taken against soldiers or civilians, but instead political leaders will be targeted.
2. Arm everyone along the US side of the border with any weapons they liked – for free (In Switzerland, for instance, every household has to have a gun – and the Swiss have not been involved in a war in 800 years, despite being right in the middle of Europe!).
3. Offer the foreign troops sanctuary, property and jobs if they lay down their arms, desert and cross the border peacefully.
4. If the threat continues to escalate, offer $100 million in gold to anyone who can convince the Canadian PM to demobilize his troops (using whatever methods work the best).
5. Drive all politicians underground by putting massive bounties on their heads.

As for people who don't want to opt in to this system, DROs will have to 'internalise the externality' out of their desire for survival. Yes, there is a potential freerider problem, but hey, people still tip waiters don't they? What about hurricane/tsunami donations? Nobody forced them to do that stuff, and plenty of the people who donated will never get any recognition for that.

All your answers are impossibly utopian. You will never be able to address fundamental issues like law enforcement, growing corporate power, the environment, provision of services to rural areas etc., because the market simply does not work in these scenarios.

Why don't you actually try me instead of just saying "there's no possible way x could work" without even knowing what my answer is to it first?

Law enforcement - already covered by DROs
Growing corporate power - do you mean like anti-trust laws? completely unnecessary in the first place, the market is self-correcting
Provision of services to rural areas - The same way normal services get provided to rural areas now... :S Except now no coerced wealth transfer from other people
The environment - maybe just read this:The Stateless Society Fights Back

It's what happens when the state disappears. You can tell, because there'll be some dickhead with an AK-47 on your 6 o'clock news shooting at some other dickhead.

Ok well I was just asking because I hear this 'power vacuum' thing from other people, but they use it as part of a different argument...

Wait...wait...weren't you saying earlier how it was ridiculous for me to claim that people are only civil to each other because there is an understanding that the state will enforce law? How can you have it both ways?

People are civil to each other because most of them intuitively understand that if they play nice, other people will play nice. You don't go up to your boss and use a gun against him and make him pay you more do ya? You don't get up in the morning, grab your gun and go force the newspaper dude to give you a paper? Do you know any people like this? On the other hand, if you're a govt, using violence on a daily basis is completely allowed.

The paragraph you quoted me on: was just explaining how what the state does is violence, and the fact that people don't fight it does not mean that they truly do accept it. In the same way that you don't really say "Over my dead body!" when 40 guys ambush you asking you to give them your wallet, the usual response is "take my money, don't hurt me".

They don't contradict each other. 1 is saying "people play nice in general", 2 is saying "The fact that people cave in to overwhelming odds and violence is not an implicit acceptance of the govt".

As a sidenote, I can't see how an anarchist system would lead to a lessening of coercion.....just a multiplication of the entities who are allowed to coerce you.

If you are being aggressed against, then there is demand for DROs to come up and protect you. These DROs will be watching each other too, to show that they provide better services than their competitors. eg. "our policy provides better cover against theft than XYZ company"

how completely delusional does one need to be to hold the belief that any form of anarchism would work?

Give me an actual problem with the system, your objection could be used against anything.

"how completely delusional does one need to be to use the nickname jb_nc?"
Or maybe:
"how completely delusional does one need to be to think that a monopoly of power (govt) won't create problems?"

 

[circusmind]

Law enforcement - already covered by DROs

Not in any liberal western sense of the word. All you're offering is private security firms against criminal attack and a sort of insurance program to mitigate against breach of contract. What about tort law? How can we expect any sort of equality if law is administered by a million different entities? How can we protect criminals against the excesses of corporations who will no doubt market the particular brutality of their services as a plus?

Growing corporate power - do you mean like anti-trust laws? completely unnecessary in the first place, the market is self-correcting

I mean the fact that there is no check on the power of the state-like entities which would emerge out of your short-lived "anarchy". Our system's brilliance is that it is self-limiting.

Provision of services to rural areas - The same way normal services get provided to rural areas now... :S Except now no coerced wealth transfer from other people

I'm talking the provision of services which must by necessity be run at a loss. These are the things governments or at least government-directed private agencies are necessary for. There is no free-market motive to deliver mail to the middle of nowhere, or provide phone lines to Whoop Whoop.

The environment - maybe just read this:The Stateless Society Fights Back

That was just dumb. People will become concerned about pollution in their area and so hire a marketing firm to put pressure on their neighbours? Are you serious? That doesn't even address a minor environmental issue. Let's talk climate change, shall we?

Ok well I was just asking because I hear this 'power vacuum' thing from other people, but they use it as part of a different argument...

Do they suggest that in the absence of state power, another entity will step in and fill the void? Because that's true. Look at any situation where a state crumbles. Warlords emerge, not free markets.

People are civil to each other because most of them intuitively understand that if they play nice, other people will play nice. You don't go up to your boss and use a gun against him and make him pay you more do ya? You don't get up in the morning, grab your gun and go force the newspaper dude to give you a paper? Do you know any people like this? On the other hand, if you're a govt, using violence on a daily basis is completely allowed.

And if you're a DRO, apparently.....wait, what was the difference again?

The paragraph you quoted me on: was just explaining how what the state does is violence, and the fact that people don't fight it does not mean that they truly do accept it. In the same way that you don't really say "Over my dead body!" when 40 guys ambush you asking you to give them your wallet, the usual response is "take my money, don't hurt me".

They don't contradict each other. 1 is saying "people play nice in general", 2 is saying "The fact that people cave in to overwhelming odds and violence is not an implicit acceptance of the govt".

2 is saying that people are only honest (pay their taxes) because of an implicit threat of force, while 1 says that people are civil without any threat. They are contradictory.

If you are being aggressed against, then there is demand for DROs to come up and protect you. These DROs will be watching each other too, to show that they provide better services than their competitors. eg. "our policy provides better cover against theft than XYZ company"

What would stop a DRO making an economically rational decision to fight another DRO for market share?

What happens to poor people in this situation? Are they entirely excluded from the already limited notion of law in your society?

 

[volition]

What about tort law? How can we expect any sort of equality if law is administered by a million different entities? How can we protect criminals against the excesses of corporations who will no doubt market the particular brutality of their services as a plus?

Tort law can be covered by your DRO when you sign up with them. When you sign up with the DRO, they can have other conditions in the contract, like "I will not do x to other people". So when other people get their rights violated, their DRO will go and talk to your DRO, and court proceedings can happen from there (if necessary).

As for equality of law... whats the point? punishments are voluntarily submitted to, so this isn't even necessary. See there are different ways it could be done. It could be done via the polycentric DRO law I'm talking about, or maybe there are towns there is only one type of law (and you explicitly contract into all of these rules). You might want to go live in the town where they're really harsh on sexual harassment, and other towns might be really liberal about this kind of stuff.

Our system's brilliance is that it is self-limiting.

When you say "our" you mean most western systems yeah? Look at the USA's debt levels, they're soaring up around the $9 trillion mark, you call that self-limiting? In the past few years, our govt has been passing new regulations at a very fast rate.

"While you weren't looking, freedom went up in smoke" by Chris Berg in the Age
- There are now more pages of Commonwealth legislation introduced every year than were passed in the first 40 years of federation.
- Smoking in pub laws - obviously no concern for publicans property rights
- Food is the next target - junk food ads
- People are no longer entrusted with assessing risks themselves

I'm talking the provision of services which must by necessity be run at a loss. These are the things governments or at least government-directed private agencies are necessary for. There is no free-market motive to deliver mail to the middle of nowhere, or provide phone lines to Whoop Whoop.

Yea these services are currently like market distortions in that they function as wealth transfers from people who don't live in rural areas. Under anarchy, they would have to actually bear this cost themselves instead of pushing it onto other people.

That was just dumb. People will become concerned about pollution in their area and so hire a marketing firm to put pressure on their neighbours? Are you serious? That doesn't even address a minor environmental issue. Let's talk climate change, shall we?

Not just marketing, you might be interested in air quality so you pay for a DRO to go around and keep air quality at a certain level (eg. it might monitor developments in the area, and with the money given to it by premiums, it may try to purchase land or pay factories not to pollute above a certain level). btw, if it turns out that these problems aren't solvable, then lets not try and pretend that the govt can solve them in the first place.

climate change - well I haven't done much reading about it, but I think that even if it is occurring, we should still be letting the economy play its course, our chances at dealing with climate change are higher when we have a stronger economy able to produce more for less. Maybe the solution is to build some rocket to send up into the atmosphere and spray chemicals, who knows, but my point is, with a stronger economy this kind of thing becomes cheaper/easier.

One last thing with environments for this post, is that when people actually own land they are correctly incentivised to look after it, because they are keeping it for the long term. For example, govts sometimes give companies logging rights, and those companies just come through take the trees and piss off. When a company actually owns the land, it is encouraged to actually be responsible and replant trees, because its there for the long term usage.

If you're interested in free market environmentalism, check out: The Commons Blog (maybe check out the archives based on what you wanna see, down the left hand side)

Do they suggest that in the absence of state power, another entity will step in and fill the void? Because that's true. Look at any situation where a state crumbles. Warlords emerge, not free markets.

Well thats not exactly what they say, what they say is more along the lines of "humans naturally want authority". As for warlords, I've already explained why warfare is generally not profitable if you have to pay for it yourself. (In our current system, the people who decide whether we go to war, are not the same as the people who pay for it)

And yes, currently there are gangs who do stuff like traffic things that have been outlawed by govts (drugs, guns etc) but if these drugs and guns weren't illegal, there wouldn't be any 'profit' in it for violent gangs. This stuff could just be done by peaceful businesses.

And if you're a DRO, apparently.....wait, what was the difference again?

It is voluntary.

2 is saying that people are only honest (pay their taxes) because of an implicit threat of force, while 1 says that people are civil without any threat. They are contradictory.

Haha I see the confusion now. You're conflating being nice with paying taxes. Paying taxes is like being robbed. That has nothing to do with being nice.

What would stop a DRO making an economically rational decision to fight another DRO for market share?

The fact that it is not economically rational to fight violently?

What happens to poor people in this situation? Are they entirely excluded from the already limited notion of law in your society?

Do you remember what I said above?

Saying what you said, is basically like saying "Hey, don't outlaw slavery! What if the newly freed slaves can't find jobs? They might starve and die! At least under slavery, I'll feed them and they'll survive." Do you see how it still makes sense that slavery should be outlawed? It's still wrong, that's why. What the govt does is wrong.

Private giving is on an upwards trend, and this trend will only continue when people aren't having 40% of their money taken off them. The economy will grow faster and will be able to give them a way better income too, when the regulatory constraints of govt are gone.