Anarchism

[trillobyite]

Re: Anarchism

Before I start I just want to clarify something: I DO NOT support domination of the economy by government. I'm not a Libertarian, but I'm certainly no big government radical. I can see why you would think me so because I began by ranting against anarchism, but I am not. I think that handles half the points you make against me...you describe how government mingling in the economy creates flaws, but I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying that's not enough to justify the total abolition of government in daily life, anarchism. I sternly don't believe people have the capability to create a capitalistic utopia without somecentral organization to monitor the economy, but not that such an organization should dictate economic policy.

The problem with this is, where do you draw the cutoff? How many units of suffering have to be present before a government crosses the line? This is ultimately a silly way of thinking.
A silly way of thinking it may be, but it is the principle behind every controversy in the American legal system to date- safety vs freedom. There is no right answer and there is no cutoff, because every person is bound to have a differing opinion. Some would be willing to have public executions, others to abolish life sentences. In a democracy, the moderate voices of the majority will be heard and there will be a compromise between freedom vs safety, enough to reasonably satisfy most people. Without a government this equilibrium would not exist.

Actually anarchism, or at least Anarcho-Capitalism, suggests that safety should be provided by the market. IE, you can buy a gun, or the services of a security force, as opposed to our present system which finances itself by taxes (and currently if people are unwilling to pay taxes uses a gun to extract the money from them). Ultimately the conception of chaos as a result of Anarchy is quite silly. Everyone has the power to harm. Right now I could go to my attic, get a rifle, walk outside and shoot someone. I don't though, firstly because I have no desire to, and secondly because the result of that would be something I wouldn't enjoy.
I'm confused here...something you wouldn't enjoy? Isn't that the consequences, such as imprisonment, or execution, the very punishments handed out by the government, deterring you? For every important man to have a security force (and just as well use it as an army to attack others) seems much more silly to me than government-administered punishments.

Now, doesn't it hold that in a society which still allowed for self-defense and still allowed for others to come to your defense, the incentive to not behave violently would still be there? Doesn't it also hold that people who can't plan ahead far enough to see disincentives and who have an overwhelming desire to hurt others do so now? Freedom is the starting point of all human beings, freedom is just taken away when doing so limits harm, such as when it limits criminals from further criminality. The idea and ideal behind at least an Anarcho-Capitalist system of defense is that no more freedom than neccessary is taken away.
Obviously not even the strongest of government can abolish the crime of those who can't plan ahead far enough to see disincentives. But private security forces don't seem a better alternative to laws. Corruption and ambition will have a much more powerful hold without laws engineered specifically to stop crime. In Ancient Europe the entire nobility was descendants of those with more cunning than others, those who destroyed others, and if such a lord were to wrong someone defenseless, that person would be no match for his men. Though that example is 1000 years old, anyone crafty enough to use a security force and guns to gain power can wrong others with impunity as easily as a corrupt government can, if not more, because the former would not have to provide justification.

This isn't neccessarily the case. Usually what's "given" to peasents, who represent 90% of the population in feudalistic systems, is their lives in exchange for having to give 90% of their crops to lords. Hardly a satisfactory or even customer oriented exchange. The very ideas about property back then represented the inequities of the political system.
That's not true. Maybe indirectly, but not directly. Peasants could leave the land and stop farming if they wanted, but then they would be bound to no lord, killed if setting foot in any lord's territory (including the one from who he just fled), and were just fodder for highway bandits. But lords weren't forcing peasants to work in exchange for their lives, it was that they could use the land to serve the church and kingdom with ridiculously high taxes, and then the rest for subsistence. I'm not pro-feudalism or pro-dictatorship, just as I wouldnt support a 90% income tax rate.

The point I'm trying to make though, is not that feudalism was wonderful, for God's sakes, no. But Look at it this way- feudalism was a political system that arose from the chaos of anarchy, from the rise of bandits and private armies and power-seekers. Though capitalism was not the economic system, the history is inherent in human nature; without any ruling empire or organization, people WILL come to either lead curelly or follow blindly, and armies, warlords, and then unfair government-controlled hubs will follow. Government is not essentially positive, but the most brutal forms of government, in the form of gangs in Somalia and in the form of feudal lords in Europe, take hold from chaos.

There is no "normal" for you to compare against.
America? Canada? UK...?

It sounds to me like your only objection to treating somalia as a political problem is the complexity and ever-changing nature of the power dynamics. Rule of the gun is just the first step towards rule by fear, it's just that, at least in somalia, the political force never establishes itself to the point for the people to acclimatize themselves to the system.
Yeah you have a point there. But refer to my earlier argument...those brutal political systems arise from the fact that no benevolent central authority exists to control the situation. They are seeds of anarchy.

Ok. Good luck on your exams.
Thanks...like I said I'm very busy, so if anything I said is ambiguous or just sounds really stupid at first glance, I can probably clear it up later...I'll try to respond to your response as soon as I can next time.

[devonin]

Re: Anarchism

We can bypass a great deal of rehash and discussion if you head over to the thread "[Essay] Should the United Nations have a standing army" and read through Kilroy_X's excellent description of how anarcho-capitalism addresses pretty much all the concerns you just expressed.

Start from around here: http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...34#post1491034

[g4z33b0]

Re: Anarchism

Anarchy:

Woo no government!

Yay!

Now what? Uhhh...

Great theory, but theories generally don't work well in reality.

[devonin]

Re: Anarchism

Er...that's the exact superficial and largely ignorant view of anarchism that was explained away as one of the very first posts of the thread.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Anarchism

Before I start I just want to clarify something: I DO NOT support domination of the economy by government. I'm not a Libertarian, but I'm certainly no big government radical. I can see why you would think me so because I began by ranting against anarchism, but I am not. I think that handles half the points you make against me...

Actually, it doesn't particularly. I'm very glad to hear you're not a statist, but your thoughts still strike me as embracing notions which I find flawed and believe have a tendency to generate real world problems.

you describe how government mingling in the economy creates flaws, but I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying that's not enough to justify the total abolition of government in daily life, anarchism. I sternly don't believe people have the capability to create a capitalistic utopia without somecentral organization to monitor the economy, but not that such an organization should dictate economic policy.

What's your support for this disbelief? Even if we accept this premise, we still need to draw a line somewhere. How much central government is neccessary? How do you weigh this neccessity? Against the harm caused by government?

The problem is, even if we accept that some central organization of the economy or of society was required, all evidence that I know of shows that as the size and influence of government decreases in both of these areas, quality of life increases and suffering decreases. This is directly proportional to the limitation of government. So, first things first, what's your argument in support of neccessity for even the smallest form of central organization?

A silly way of thinking it may be, but it is the principle behind every controversy in the American legal system to date

Actually I'll do you one better than that; It's the fundamental question in contention to be found in virtually every political system, every philosophy, every economy and every individual. The weighing of suffering vs. happiness, that is. Not so much your contextualization, which is somewhat derivative in the sense of a decay.

- safety vs freedom. There is no right answer and there is no cutoff, because every person is bound to have a differing opinion. Some would be willing to have public executions, others to abolish life sentences.

Well... I'd like to stop right here for the moment. This admission is very important and I want you to keep it in mind as you read.

In a democracy, the moderate voices of the majority will be heard and there will be a compromise between freedom vs safety, enough to reasonably satisfy most people. Without a government this equilibrium would not exist.

The criticism isn't that this equilibrium isn't better than most forms of political system, but rather that the market would create a superior equilibrium.

Ok, first I want you to understand how a free market built on voluntary cooperation operates. The voluntary nature of trade ensures that no product is produced which is not valued enough to support it, and that no product is purchased which the consumer doesn't consider good.

Now, I want you to understand the fundamental distinction between this dynamic, in which the desirability of something is decided as locally as possible by every individual, and between democracy wherein the values of as much as 49.999_% of the population are in conflict with the product provided. Understand the distinction?

Now, the conception of Anarcho-Capitalism is to make everything, including the use of force, the boundaries of communities, the rules of communities; subject to market forces, which hypothetically ensures no service- no outcome, actually - occurs which doesn't meet the criterion for maximum valuation to value satisfaction. This is, at least hypothetically, a vastly superior equilibrium to democracy, no?

I'm confused here...something you wouldn't enjoy? Isn't that the consequences, such as imprisonment, or execution, the very punishments handed out by the government, deterring you?

Do you think retribrution would cease to exist if government did? Hell, how do I even know in the current world with government still existing that I might not be shot dead by the first person I pointed my rifle at?

For every important man to have a security force (and just as well use it as an army to attack others) seems much more silly to me than government-administered punishments.

Actually, who do you think government security protects the most now? A frequent marxist criticism is that government security in a capitalist state inevitably ends up benefiting those with the most capital. The government also, in both marxist and capitalist theory, inevitably ends up being used as a tool to procure and maintain wealth beyond ethical limits.

When the rich have to pay for protection, that's just one more expenditure for them. I don't think I have to tell you what that means.

Obviously not even the strongest of government can abolish the crime of those who can't plan ahead far enough to see disincentives. But private security forces don't seem a better alternative to laws.

Who says laws would cease to exist? What is a law anyways, except an invented tool which would be useless if it couldn't be enforced? The nature of laws in an AC society would presumably shift towards voluntary subscription to the laws in the case of individuals who believed they needed them, no such arrangement among those who didn't, and the inevitable application of laws to criminals who violated the property of others. Even in this case though, criminals would presumably have more choice, which may at once be a criticism and a case-builder, because how do we know everyone accused of criminality is a criminal?

Corruption and ambition will have a much more powerful hold without laws engineered specifically to stop crime.

Again, the laws have little to do with it. In fact laws often have little to do with the operation of police forces even in this country. Sometimes police take actions extra-legally which benefit a person, sometimes they take actions which don't and which oppose both the spirit and the letter of the law. That's somewhat of a seperate issue though.

In Ancient Europe the entire nobility was descendants of those with more cunning than others, those who destroyed others, and if such a lord were to wrong someone defenseless, that person would be no match for his men. Though that example is 1000 years old, anyone crafty enough to use a security force and guns to gain power can wrong others with impunity as easily as a corrupt government can, if not more, because the former would not have to provide justification.

Thousands of years ago swordsmanship and strength determined victory. A lord could subsist by subjugating maybe a few hundred people. He could do so with the help of religion as well as force. Ultimately lords conspired together to cement their power in one of the most ancient forms of market consolidation, although it bears repeating that the market they controlled was not a voluntary market.

Today, guns are an immediate deterent. They can be purchased anywhere for very reasonable prices, they can even be built simply and economically using pretty crude methods. There is no dramatic learning curve in firearm use. Is it possible that a security force could be so superior as to put down not only armed individuals, but also other security forces which would inevitably become involved as demand for their services skyrocketed? Sure; but it is extremely unlikely, and as the state of weapons development as well as of the course of the market in general continues to equalize things in this way, it can only become more unlikely.

That's not true. Maybe indirectly, but not directly. Peasants could leave the land and stop farming if they wanted, but then they would be bound to no lord, killed if setting foot in any lord's territory (including the one from who he just fled), and were just fodder for highway bandits.

Including the one from which he fled. Enough said. Freedom to do something isn't as meaningful when the consequences are overwhelmingly, consistently, and humanly designed as negative.

But lords weren't forcing peasants to work in exchange for their lives, it was that they could use the land to serve the church and kingdom with ridiculously high taxes, and then the rest for subsistence. I'm not pro-feudalism or pro-dictatorship, just as I wouldnt support a 90% income tax rate.

This is hardly a free or voluntary arrangement though, in the same sense "your money or your life" isn't. By most measures it's a system of 90% coercion.

Actually, now that I think of it this is just another example of the equalizing effect of technological development, something which is expedited by a free market. In this case it occurs largely from within a power system though instead of externally through free-market cooperation, which makes it all the more fascinating.

The point I'm trying to make though, is not that feudalism was wonderful, for God's sakes, no. But Look at it this way- feudalism was a political system that arose from the chaos of anarchy, from the rise of bandits and private armies and power-seekers.

I actually think the fundamental problem here is when you start considering what's socially prevelent to be "political". When do folkways become mores? When do mores become rules? When do rules become laws? Ultimately, all these spring up from within individual human beings, be they as they might subjected to certain environmental conditions in varying degrees of uniformity or variance. The problem is ultimately human, all too human, and perhaps when psychology is refined to an actual science (through biology, preferably) we'll finally be able to look at the grand cause of the whole human mess rather than bothering around with these cumbersome languages of ideology.

Though capitalism was not the economic system, the history is inherent in human nature; without any ruling empire or organization, people WILL come to either lead curelly or follow blindly, and armies, warlords, and then unfair government-controlled hubs will follow. Government is not essentially positive, but the most brutal forms of government, in the form of gangs in Somalia and in the form of feudal lords in Europe, take hold from chaos.

But the problem is precisely that Anarchy is not chaos. Chaos was the beginning of human origin. The beginning of human society. Can we overcome our bias from having only seen anarchy once, at the start of our existence during this chaos? Do we know how this chaos arises or how it leads to such problems as the history of humanity articulate? I really hope so.

America? Canada? UK...?

Oh, this is geocentrism, or ethnocentrism, or some other-centrism if not a combination. There's really no grand official measuring stick of a system to compare the world against.

Yeah you have a point there. But refer to my earlier argument...those brutal political systems arise from the fact that no benevolent central authority exists to control the situation. They are seeds of anarchy.

I very much doubt, first the existence of such benevolent authorities, secondly the effectiveness of their benevolence in terms of the actual effects they have on a society. I believe I've already addressed the other parts.

Thanks...like I said I'm very busy, so if anything I said is ambiguous or just sounds really stupid at first glance, I can probably clear it up later...I'll try to respond to your response as soon as I can next time.

Ok. Don't put your studies at risk for my sake, though.

[FyRe-AnT]

Re: Anarchism

People have too many flaws in their personality for anarchism to really work, people have a natural hunger for power, and ive never been a advocate for gov't or organized religion because it is just another way for someone else to control you through your fears, but anyway anarchism just can't work because of today's moral views and just the fact most people are so close minded that it cant be healthy

[trillobyite]

Re: Anarchism

What's your support for this disbelief? Even if we accept this premise, we still need to draw a line somewhere. How much central government is neccessary? How do you weigh this neccessity? Against the harm caused by government?
That's up to experts to decide. Nothing too powerful, but something that can maintain stability.

The problem is, even if we accept that some central organization of the economy or of society was required, all evidence that I know of shows that as the size and influence of government decreases in both of these areas, quality of life increases and suffering decreases. This is directly proportional to the limitation of government. So, first things first, what's your argument in support of neccessity for even the smallest form of central organization?
What evidence is there that there is a direct relationship between limitation on government and quality of life? I can see the relationship between dictatorial power and quality of life as inversely proportional, but that doesn't mean the opposite holds true....


Actually I'll do you one better than that; It's the fundamental question in contention to be found in virtually every political system, every philosophy, every economy and every individual. The weighing of suffering vs. happiness, that is. Not so much your contextualization, which is somewhat derivative in the sense of a decay.
How is freedom vs safety at all related to suffering vs happiness? Too much freedom (say, inadmissibility of legitimate evidence in court due to stricter standards) will lead to no safety and thus suffering, too much safety will lead to police raids at any time, which is also suffering.

The criticism isn't that this equilibrium isn't better than most forms of political system, but rather that the market would create a superior equilibrium.

Ok, first I want you to understand how a free market built on voluntary cooperation operates. The voluntary nature of trade ensures that no product is produced which is not valued enough to support it, and that no product is purchased which the consumer doesn't consider good.
Consumers consider transfatty chicken nuggets at McDonalds to be good, but quality of life and the value of such food are not high at all. Companies can always commit some stratagem or ruse to trick consumers into overvaluing their products. Before Sinclair's "The Jungle", people didn't know about the lack of health standards in meat processing, and so would support those practices. There needs to be government to protect against that sort of threat. The alternative (under an anarchist society) would be some way of mass information, a media, spreading the word about such products, but there is no guarentee word could ever get out or, that if it could, those profiting from sales won't assassinate those who might smear their good name.

Now, I want you to understand the fundamental distinction between this dynamic, in which the desirability of something is decided as locally as possible by every individual, and between democracy wherein the values of as much as 49.999_% of the population are in conflict with the product provided. Understand the distinction?
America runs on the principle of rule of the majority with minority rights. If those potential 49.9% were denied the right to express their views and influence the 51.000001%, then I would agree, but that is not the case.

Now, the conception of Anarcho-Capitalism is to make everything, including the use of force, the boundaries of communities, the rules of communities; subject to market forces, which hypothetically ensures no service- no outcome, actually - occurs which doesn't meet the criterion for maximum valuation to value satisfaction. This is, at least hypothetically, a vastly superior equilibrium to democracy, no?
Hypothetically it is superior, but what are the chances of, even under anarchy, every individual being given that sort of power? Popularity could become a very dangerous force; a minority and a majority will still exist for various issues, except the minority will have no ability to protect themselves.

Do you think retribrution would cease to exist if government did? Hell, how do I even know in the current world with government still existing that I might not be shot dead by the first person I pointed my rifle at?
If under an anarchist system everyone had easy access to weaponry then it might be a whole different sory, but I doubt that would happen; some enttity would end up with the monopoly on weapons, most likely, but that can't really be determined.

Actually, who do you think government security protects the most now? A frequent marxist criticism is that government security in a capitalist state inevitably ends up benefiting those with the most capital. The government also, in both marxist and capitalist theory, inevitably ends up being used as a tool to procure and maintain wealth beyond ethical limits.

When the rich have to pay for protection, that's just one more expenditure for them. I don't think I have to tell you what that means.
I don't know...that sounds a little shaky. Though indeed the ability of the guilty wealthy to be represented in court more effectively than some innocent street kid is a shame to democracy, I don't think that is an inherent flaw.

Who says laws would cease to exist? What is a law anyways, except an invented tool which would be useless if it couldn't be enforced? The nature of laws in an AC society would presumably shift towards voluntary subscription to the laws in the case of individuals who believed they needed them, no such arrangement among those who didn't, and the inevitable application of laws to criminals who violated the property of others. Even in this case though, criminals would presumably have more choice, which may at once be a criticism and a case-builder, because how do we know everyone accused of criminality is a criminal?
I would not want to live in a place where there is a whole subset of people who feel that they do not need to subscribe to the laws of the region. And what force would or could apply the laws to criminals who violate the property of others?

Again, the laws have little to do with it. In fact laws often have little to do with the operation of police forces even in this country. Sometimes police take actions extra-legally which benefit a person, sometimes they take actions which don't and which oppose both the spirit and the letter of the law. That's somewhat of a seperate issue though.
That's true, but I think we've been talking so far about these systems in an ideal view.

Thousands of years ago swordsmanship and strength determined victory. A lord could subsist by subjugating maybe a few hundred people. He could do so with the help of religion as well as force. Ultimately lords conspired together to cement their power in one of the most ancient forms of market consolidation, although it bears repeating that the market they controlled was not a voluntary market.

Today, guns are an immediate deterent. They can be purchased anywhere for very reasonable prices, they can even be built simply and economically using pretty crude methods. There is no dramatic learning curve in firearm use. Is it possible that a security force could be so superior as to put down not only armed individuals, but also other security forces which would inevitably become involved as demand for their services skyrocketed? Sure; but it is extremely unlikely, and as the state of weapons development as well as of the course of the market in general continues to equalize things in this way, it can only become more unlikely.
Though it must be annoying to hear me say this repeatedly, take a look at Somalia, or the Congo. I think it's actually more likely than not that any group with a charismatic leader and the potential could become powerful enough, guns or swords irrelevant, to defeat other such forces in the region. A smaller force with guns vs a bigger force with guns is equivalent to a small army of knights fighting a large army of knights.

Including the one from which he fled. Enough said. Freedom to do something isn't as meaningful when the consequences are overwhelmingly, consistently, and humanly designed as negative.

This is hardly a free or voluntary arrangement though, in the same sense "your money or your life" isn't. By most measures it's a system of 90% coercion.

Actually, now that I think of it this is just another example of the equalizing effect of technological development, something which is expedited by a free market. In this case it occurs largely from within a power system though instead of externally through free-market cooperation, which makes it all the more fascinating.
Yeah you caught me on that, but I'm not saying feudalism is freedom. It was indeed a political system derived by the exploitation of the weak and poor. I was being confusing, but I changed the point I tried to make in the middle.

I actually think the fundamental problem here is when you start considering what's socially prevelent to be "political". When do folkways become mores? When do mores become rules? When do rules become laws? Ultimately, all these spring up from within individual human beings, be they as they might subjected to certain environmental conditions in varying degrees of uniformity or variance. The problem is ultimately human, all too human, and perhaps when psychology is refined to an actual science (through biology, preferably) we'll finally be able to look at the grand cause of the whole human mess rather than bothering around with these cumbersome languages of ideology.
Ok! But that's actually an argument against anarchism of you ask me! Humanity by nature, through all these historical examples, tends to start folkways, then mores, then laws, and then civilizations. Ancient Kingdoms were brutal- modern kingdoms are not nearly as brutal. Maybe with time we've had a massive change in mentality (at least, the West), but the point I'm making is; whenever we try to start "anew," free from the corruption of a government (for example, the Roman Empire suffered heavily from corruption before leading into the period we are talking about), by human nature, folkways become mores, and mores become laws, and civilizations and governments develop, but in a very primitive form. A market-driven anarchy is utopian; it too will give birth to primitive government, due to human nature subjecting what starts as mere folkways of individuals, as you say, into uniform, societal law.

But the problem is precisely that Anarchy is not chaos. Chaos was the beginning of human origin. The beginning of human society. Can we overcome our bias from having only seen anarchy once, at the start of our existence during this chaos? Do we know how this chaos arises or how it leads to such problems as the history of humanity articulate? I really hope so.
The transitional periods between the fall of the roman empire to medieval europe, and weimar germany to nazi germany, and much more- these are all instances of chaos, instances of a government falling, technology lost along with organization. To create an anarchy you described, not based on this chaos, would depend, it seems, on heavy planning, but that's just unrealistic; people would have to ignore their daily lives to get involved in a grand agneda to revolutionize society, and there will be trouble getting schoolgirls out of malls and families to postpone their daily routine.

Oh, this is geocentrism, or ethnocentrism, or some other-centrism if not a combination. There's really no grand official measuring stick of a system to compare the world against.
I'm trying to relate this all to the best examples of modern democracies/republics...that's not ethnocentric....

Ok. Don't put your studies at risk for my sake, though.
Nah it's ok. This is fun so I respond in my spare time. I've never really had a hardcore debate with an anarchist (or anarcho-capitalist?) before so you're clearing a lot of things up for me and teaching me interesting theories I've never known before. That's worth more than some AP test

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Anarchism

That's up to experts to decide. Nothing too powerful, but something that can maintain stability.

How do you define an expert?

What evidence is there that there is a direct relationship between limitation on government and quality of life? I can see the relationship between dictatorial power and quality of life as inversely proportional, but that doesn't mean the opposite holds true....

If you want a good introduction to the economic side of this evidence, try reading Milton Friedman's Free to Choose.

How is freedom vs safety at all related to suffering vs happiness? Too much freedom (say, inadmissibility of legitimate evidence in court due to stricter standards) will lead to no safety and thus suffering, too much safety will lead to police raids at any time, which is also suffering.

Yet hapiness vs. suffering remains at the core of the issue. The problem with the contextualization you're using is that it equivocates the meaning of actions between authority and the common man. If someone shoots someone who doesn't deserve it, does it really matter if the person with the gun has a badge?

Your examples also don't strike me as all that coherent, no offense. Refusing to admit evidence is a form of restriction. Constant police raids similarly put both police and people in danger of each other.

Consumers consider transfatty chicken nuggets at McDonalds to be good, but quality of life and the value of such food are not high at all.

What exactly do you mean? If people are willing to buy something, how is its value less than what they are willing to pay for it? If people are willing to live life in a certain way when they have a choice between multiple ways of living, how is this not by definition their prefered way of living?

Companies can always commit some stratagem or ruse to trick consumers into overvaluing their products.

True, but deception tends to cost highly for a business later even if it results in initial gains in the short run. Eventually, consumers catch on to ruses; it's utterly inevitable. Their response can destroy a company, and it can serve to prevent consumers from making similar mistakes in the future. Other companies usually learn as well, if they want to be profitable.

Before Sinclair's "The Jungle", people didn't know about the lack of health standards in meat processing, and so would support those practices.

"I aimed for the publics heart and ended up hitting them in the stomach". I hear Socialists reference this book and its implications all the time. Although it is amusing that the books result was very different from the authors intentions, but ultimately the movement towards regulation accomplished very little. The book itself did a great service though by making consumers more aware of the products they were purchasing and giving them greater room for evaluating whether or not they wanted to purchase the products based on new information.

There needs to be government to protect against that sort of threat.

Not at all. If you read the chapter "Who protects the consumer" in Free to Choose, you'll see what kinds of mechanisms are already in place in a free market to protect the consumer, as well as how existing government systems fail in their intended task.

As a more immediate note, I'm sure you've heard recent uproar about how the FDA only inspects 2% of food, and other such things?

The alternative (under an anarchist society) would be some way of mass information, a media, spreading the word about such products

Hmm. A huge, global media network, highly adaptive and constantly evolving, that can provide information instantly and voice any opinion for negligable cost even when it's unpopular? Nah, that certainly couldn't exist.

but there is no guarentee word could ever get out or, that if it could, those profiting from sales won't assassinate those who might smear their good name.

Assassination would be bad for business. Oh, and if the internet can maintain a constant stream of piracy, child pornography, and nazi polemic despite constant efforts to shut these things down by huge programs in governments worldwide, as well as private efforts, I think it's safe to assume speech of any kind could never be completely shut down on such a network.

America runs on the principle of rule of the majority with minority rights. If those potential 49.9% were denied the right to express their views and influence the 51.000001%, then I would agree, but that is not the case.

In other words, a constitution is infinitely more important than a democratic system in our current political system. I agree completely. However, your faith in minority rights is fairly naive. This country has a long history of adopting laws which are unconstitutional, from the Alien and Sedition act which was passed almost immediately after the formation of this country, to the modern day PATRIOT act, to any number of other such exceptions. On top of that, the way our system functions things can be added to the constitution which directly violate minority rights. Prohibition is a good example. Actually, one would wonder if prohibition dealt with a minority. A good current example is the impending constitutional ammendment to ban gay marriage.

Hypothetically it is superior, but what are the chances of, even under anarchy, every individual being given that sort of power? Popularity could become a very dangerous force; a minority and a majority will still exist for various issues, except the minority will have no ability to protect themselves.

I'm glad you're willing to admit at least the hypothetical supremacy of this equilibrium. To be perfectly honest, I have more studying to do before I can come to a conclusion about the feasability of such a thing. The important things to remember are that, firstly, popularity is a very dangerous force now, secondly, various mechanisms have been suggested which would provide a minority the ability to protect itself, and lastly, the starting position of human beings before interaction is one in which every individual is sovereign. It's only the nature of interaction between human beings which can be given any sense of character about how human beings are diminished or how they tyrannize.

If under an anarchist system everyone had easy access to weaponry then it might be a whole different sory, but I doubt that would happen; some enttity would end up with the monopoly on weapons, most likely, but that can't really be determined.

A monopoly on weapons? Monopolies are quite hard to achieve normally, but this would be outright absurd! I could build a gun out of a stapler you know, but being less silly all you need to build a good grenade is a segment of threaded pipe and a few household tools and items. Similarly, a very nice gun can be made using very primitive equipment. Barring that, there are countless other forms of weapons which are easy to produce and effective in various ways.

I don't know...that sounds a little shaky. Though indeed the ability of the guilty wealthy to be represented in court more effectively than some innocent street kid is a shame to democracy, I don't think that is an inherent flaw.

How so? It's perhaps a flaw which might not dissapear from an AC society, which would be a possible criticism against it, but it seems a fairly blatant flaw to me.

I would not want to live in a place where there is a whole subset of people who feel that they do not need to subscribe to the laws of the region. And what force would or could apply the laws to criminals who violate the property of others?

Why? They wouldn't need to subscribe to the laws of the region, as long as they knew not to harm you or your property and understood the consequences. Basically, all the significant laws would apply to them regardless of whether they accepted anything past that point. Or at least, these laws would apply to their interaction between you and them, not neccessarily between themselves.

What force could apply the laws? A private commisioned security force, likely to be held in common by subscription of citizens of any given "society". And this force would have one of the most powerful forces backing it. The force of the market.

That's true, but I think we've been talking so far about these systems in an ideal view.

Absolutely. That's why it's somewhat of a different issue. And again, the feasibility of this ideology is still something I need to examine.

Though it must be annoying to hear me say this repeatedly, take a look at Somalia, or the Congo.

Actually, although it somewhat pains me to suggest it, the constant level of conflict in these regions likely reflects an increased ability for both defense and offense which lessens overall oppresion. A good question though; would you rather live under a feudalistic system, or in the current political and civil unrest in either of these regions? It's also worth noting that neither of these regions probably has a healthy market in place. Economic tyranny and social tyranny usually go hand in hand.

I think it's actually more likely than not that any group with a charismatic leader and the potential could become powerful enough, guns or swords irrelevant, to defeat other such forces in the region. A smaller force with guns vs a bigger force with guns is equivalent to a small army of knights fighting a large army of knights.

I'm pretty sure this is outright false. There are plenty of instances in recorded history, even in the beginnning of this country, when farmers have stood up to trained militias and won. While it's true that with superior weapons and training a military force could pretty much decimate its opponents, the manner in which military forces have developed in years passed was based largely on luck, on various phenomenon in social climate and values, and in other such things. The free market would, hypothetically, have a leveling effect on any extreme variance between forces efficiency.

Well, actually I might need to investigate this last part a bit further, because although it is an argument, I'm actually somewhat skeptical of its tenability myself.

Ok! But that's actually an argument against anarchism of you ask me!

Sure. Well, after a fashion. It proposes that the fundamental problem with any political system is the human being, which ultimately renders any argument in favor of political change somewhat moot. Well, again after a fashion. We need to know what's wrong with people before we know how any given political system lessens or exacerbates these flaws.

A market-driven anarchy is utopian; it too will give birth to primitive government, due to human nature subjecting what starts as mere folkways of individuals, as you say, into uniform, societal law.

In which case, we end up with the same thing we have now. And the cost to travel in this circle? Well, considering that during the entire history of humanity people have killed each other in huge numbers almost constantly, under many carying conditions, there's no reason to assume the cost might not be much of the same old story we experience now as well.

The transitional periods between the fall of the roman empire to medieval europe, and weimar germany to nazi germany, and much more-

Weimar germany to Nazi germany is a case example of how economic oppresion can generate evils...

these are all instances of chaos, instances of a government falling, technology lost along with organization. To create an anarchy you described, not based on this chaos, would depend, it seems, on heavy planning, but that's just unrealistic; people would have to ignore their daily lives to get involved in a grand agneda to revolutionize society, and there will be trouble getting schoolgirls out of malls and families to postpone their daily routine.

I'm sorry to say it, but this is just outright ignorant. In fact, the abundance of central planning and particularly government planning usually corresponds perfectly with the amount of hardship and suffering in a given system. Government fell in both of these instances because it was unjust and commited serious crimes against its people, to the point it could no longer sustain itself. The degeneracy that followed was in some sense the result of the governments making in the first instance, and the largely result of another governments making in the second. The treaty of Versailles was economically devastating to the german people and was one of a number of factors which lead them into their own great depression, paving the way for Hitler with his talks of radical economic and social reform.

I'm trying to relate this all to the best examples of modern democracies/republics...that's not ethnocentric....

It still assumes there is some ordinal ranking of supremacy between cultures and political systems. Comparisons shouldn't be made in terms of such heirarchy. The properties of any given set of things should be set out, side by side, and then their desirability should be determined. Not in a greater-lesser sort of way, but in a yes or no sort of way. A way that abolutely and perfectly confirms a persons values based on what they are capable of valuing. And if something genuinely new comes along which can be set next to the others, all the better.

Nah it's ok. This is fun so I respond in my spare time. I've never really had a hardcore debate with an anarchist (or anarcho-capitalist?) before so you're clearing a lot of things up for me and teaching me interesting theories I've never known before. That's worth more than some AP test

I would fashion myself Anarcho-Capitalistic in tendency, even if not in entirety. Right now I'm more of a Minarchist though, until I review Anarcho-Capitalism a bit more thoroughly. I'm also a registered Libertarian.

It's interesting as well as flattering that you would place more value on this conversation than on your AP test; I just want to make sure you make your valuations under maximum awareness of their potential outcome, like any responsible seller should.

[soulofcerberus]

Re: Anarchism

Has it ever occurred that a large part of the population would not be intelligent enough to support an anarchistic lifestyle? Maintaining Anarchy without some sort of government taking form would be near impossible.

[devonin]

Re: Anarchism

If a bunch of people decide to elect some leader and put that leader in charge of themselves, it isn't a case of them being too stupid to work an anarchy, it is a matter of them making the free anarchistic decision to leave the system and form their own.

[soulofcerberus]

Re: Anarchism

Putting someone as a leader and in charge of themselves would qualify as a government. A small government, but still a government.

Besides, making one anarchist decision does not mean you are living an anarchist lifestyle.

[devonin]

Re: Anarchism

You miss my point. The moment someone in an anarchy decides to establish a government, they are just deciding to leave the anarchy.

[soulofcerberus]

Re: Anarchism

Oh, I get it. Thanks!

Well that means that a worldwide, or in actuality, any somewhat large anarchist movement would be hard to maintain.

Being that many people would most likely leave at some point.

[Coolgamer]

Re: Anarchism

I'm into anarcho-capitalism myself.

[devonin]

Re: Anarchism

Oh, I get it. Thanks!

Well that means that a worldwide, or in actuality, any somewhat large anarchist movement would be hard to maintain.

Being that many people would most likely leave at some point.

Most people would leave at some point if they were put in the anarchistic system against their will. I rather suspect that if your anarchy was composed only of people who understood just what it was they were agreeing to, that the turnover rate would be much lower.