Anarchy

I was comparing it to despotism.

galenrox said:

Damn straight, when my dad pointed that out to me, I was awestruck by the simple wisdom behind it.

And to technocratic utilitarian, what? Is the only reason you're not out raping, pillaging, and murdering the law? I'd certainly hope not!

You're not talking about anarchy, you're talking about chaos. Anarchy is the absence of law, chaos is the absence of order. If that's lost on you you really need to practice thinking outside of the box.

Click to expand...

Just one...small...question. I missed a lot of this thread after you were insulting me, so if you answered already, just point me to the post.

How will you provide order without laws? Crossing your fingers? Relying on *snicker* human nature?

galenrox said:

I have explained this two you, but I don't doubt that the lack of nutrients in your system have left you too blind to see what I write:2wave:

Social order. If you kill someone, or try to kill someone, chances are either that person's friends will kill you back, or if actions deemed inappropriate in a given society become frequent, the society will take steps to end them.

Click to expand...

That's your explanation?!? No wonder I ignored it. My superior vegan intelligence filters out garbage like that. :mrgreen:

What if someone has no friends? Do they not deserve to live? What if the person that killed him has more friends? His crime must go unpunished. What if the leader of a community brutally rapes and murders some runaway that was passing through? The society doesn't know her. Why should they care as long as he limits his killings to outsiders? Sounds like a ball. Kinda like our cave man days. Has anybody even thought this theory through?

Kelzie said:

How will you provide order without laws? Crossing your fingers? Relying on *snicker* human nature?

Click to expand...

I think anarcho-capitalism would be better thought off as "competing gov'ts" with individual rights as near absolutes.

There would still exist laws and organized force, but the individual would have the decision on what--if any--to subscribe to. Imagine a person who has their property constantly terrorized by someone. He pays a police force for protection and they protect his rights through force.

I won't air my criticisms of anarcho-capitalsim here, because I don't feel like typing that much. It's a very interesting theory, but in practicality, it's nothing more than mob rule.

I suppose anarchy could serve usefully as a transitional phase of government, a short time when we dispose of the truly stupid, or those who refuse the education that is available, those who have twisted immature minds that reside in a little box, the walls of which are made up of ignorance and distorted views of reality, those who only have mental skills and/or ambition to run errands for those who actually have learned some useful skills that might benefit society.
Yeah, I like the idea of a good cleansing of the gene pool, a colonic of sorts that empties our nation of the waste products of a generation that left many of its children to be raised by MTV, video games, reality TV shows, etc.

BTW, that was sarcasm. I feel it is necessary to reveal that to those who might actually think anarchy is a viable form of government.

galenrox said:

If someone has no friends, society would still respond, and if society does not respond, I think that says something about the person. Think about your little neighborhood. If someone with no friends was killed, would you still seek justice? I would, even just for the simple fact that I would feel less safe in my neighborhood with murderers lurking.
If a leader of your community raped and murdered a drifter, would you care?
You're treating this as if you're not dealing with people. You are dealing with people. You're pretending that most people are rapists and murderers, and the only reason that they're not raping and murdering is because of the law, and those who aren't rapists or murderers are completely indifferent to rape and murder. In your experience, how many people have you met that are completely indifferent to rape and murder?

Click to expand...

What's her name? Kitty something. You know who I'm talking about. That's what I think of people. As long as it doesn't happen to themselves or someone they care about, they don't give a damn. Better example? You ever study social psychology? Scared the hell out of me. There was an experiment in the 60s where the person being tested gave fake jolts of electricity to a guy who was supposed to have memorized something. Two thirds of the people went up to a lethal amount of electricity galen. Two thirds! The law and the government is the only thing that keeps people in line.

galenrox said:

If you paid attention to that study, which I did, it was a complete justification for anarchy. It was a study of how people react to authority, and as it found, two thirds of people would be willing to kill a complete stranger if told to do so by an authority figure. Government is that authority.

Click to expand...

Government is A authority. So there will be no authority in anarchy? Whoever has the biggest guns wins? How the hell is your "society" supposed to do something about murder if they have no authority? And you missed my point. Humans suck, by nature. Without a government, they would be free to suck even more.

galenrox said:

Are you kidding? Where do you think the vast majority of the suckiness of humans comes from? It comes from the fact that we no longer hold ourselves responsible for how our world works. As long as there is a government, it's not our responsibility, it's theirs. If we knew that it was actually up to us to make sure **** worked right, I can guarantee we wouldn't have all of these little distractions and temper tantrums about filibusters.
There are certain aspects of human nature that suck. Government amplifies these aspects, and downplays the aspects that don't.

Click to expand...

First, the government is supposed to represent the people. They are our responsibility.

Second, you never answered my question. How will a society be able to punish a murderer if they have no authority?

galenrox said:

Society as a whole has authority, the individual, not so much. Not anywhere close to that of a government official or a doctor, or anyone else that we are prone to trust without question.

And to your first point, yeah, the government actually represents the people, and we all live in Candyland and prance around and ride unicorns in lollipop dreams.
Meanwhile in the real world, the presence of government detatches people from the actual going ons in this society. Christ, we actually elected a president who went out of his way that to say he doesn't care what we think.
Do you feel responsible for the war? More to the point, let's take someone who supports the war. Do you hold vague responsible for the war? No, you hold Bush responsible for the war. That is because vague is detatched from the actual going ons in our society due to the presence of government.

Click to expand...

You are wrong. I hold all people who voted for Bush partially responsible. If I voted for a crappy president, I would suck it up and admit I screwed up. The people we elect are our responsibility.

How, exactly, would authority manifest itself in a society? Define it. How would your society get its authority to punish a murderer?

galenrox said:

Really? So you personally think that vague is just as responsible, if not more so than Bush for the deaths of over 30,000 people, and you're still friendly with him?
I personally think you're just posturing for the purpose of this current debate. When it comes down to it, what have you done more of, Bush bashing or vague bashing?

There'd be less authority in general, because there wouldn't be anyone holding the unquestionable status that those doctors held in that study. Think about someone's thought process while doing that:
"I'm in a university, with a professor telling me what to do. There's no way he would actually make me kill that person, because he'd go to jail because it's against the law"
Now if those same people went in there, knowing full well that it was possible that the professor was killing these people, do you think they still would've done it?

Click to expand...

You...are aware that I am not against the war right? That's besides the point. I didn't say it was all vauge's fault. All the people who elected Bush hold some responsibility for his actions. They put him there. As far as the person who holds the most responsibilty, well it's Bush. But he couldn't have done it alone.

I'm not quite clear what you are saying, but I don't think it's answering my question. How much authority isn't what I'm asking. How would a society get authority in the first place to punish a murderer?

galenrox said:

Well, in the end authority comes from ability. If a group of people can do something and deal with the cosequences, they have the authority. That's how authority works, and don't you think for a second that that's not how government works.
Thus, if a society doesn't like gays, and think that gays should be killed, they better be ready to take on the gays, and if they can't, then they don't have the authority.
The fact of the matter is the VAST majority of people are quite reasonable, and able to decide fairly well what's right and what's wrong. That's why we leave our entire justice system up to juries. You keep focusing on the fringe crazies because that's the only place where you can find any problems.
Like, my neighborhood would be fine, your neighborhood would be fine, everywhere outside of Kansas and parts of Pennsylvania would be fine, because most people are reasonable, which is something I think you tend to forget.

Click to expand...

I just want to make sure I have all your points correct.

Murder wouldn't fly in anarchy because the society has the authority to punish murderers.

Society gets the authority to punish murderers because it has the ability to punish them.


If I got that right, my next question is where does it get the ability?

galenrox said:

Are you kidding? Are you seriously questioning how a bunch of people get the ability to punish 1 person?

Click to expand...

So a society gets the ability from the people that make up the society, right?

galenrox said:

...exactly...

Click to expand...

So would the entire society get involved every time there's a murder? Or every time they want a trade agreement, or to use another society's roads, or..well, you get the point. All of these thousands of people involving themselves every time the society needs to use its authority, how would they have time to do anything else?

galenrox said:

private security forces, private road builders, trade agreements would be between businesses, and thus institutionalized trade agreements would be pointless.

Click to expand...

So if a farmer wanted to buy seed, he would have to individually approach the business, despite the fact that the society as a whole could get a much better deal for the seed than one person?

And how would the society decide which roads to buy access too? Or which businesses to deal with? Or which laws the private security force should enforce? Or what to do if a bigger private security force from another society wanted to take all their land? What would they do then?

Would every single member of the society decide on every single issue facing the society? How would they have time for anything else? And how would they pay for the private security force, and the roads?

galenrox said:

Where do you think farmers get their seeds? They BUY them from businesses that sell seeds!!!

Basically the private security force would have a simple job, protect the members of the society from theft and violence (protect the body and the property), and, if the people wanted to actually be responsible for themselves, they'd buy some guns.

How do people decide what businesses to do business with now? You're asking questions "How would we do this without the government" when we already do it without the government, so the question's pointless.

As far as roads, they could just set off some roads as private drives if they want, or they could allow outsiders to use them like intelligent human beings who realize that their area would benefit by letting people use their roads as opposed to dedicating resources towards preventing the usage.

See, in an anarchy the possibilities to deal with any situation are endless. With government the possibility is always the same, to do the job crappily for way too much money.

Click to expand...

Hardly, you didn't answer all the question. How would a society pay for it? I'm assuming they'd have some sort of private firehouse as well. Along with a private police force, private roads...seems like you're going to have to issue a tax. Along with add "tax collector" to the jobs of your private police force.

Are there, or are there not decisions that must be made that affect the entire society?

Galen, do you believe in age of sexual consent, a certain age for alchohol purchasing or drugs(were they legal), age for gambling?

The point I'm driving at here is that I think most people believe children are entitled to different freedoms than adults. As much as I dislike positive liberties, I think children should be entitled to them. Rather than be given through the state, they are given by the parents, and maintained through threat of force, such as: Don't feed your children, go to jail or have the state take them from you.

If no authority existed for the protection of children, what would stop them from purchasing cocaine, porn etc?

If I wanted to start a polygamous relationship with a few like-minded women and have a pack of children which I would use as slave labour, who would stop me?

What about privatized adoption services? Yes, there is always abortion and birth control, but there will always be unwanted children. So you could put an unwanted child up for adoption, but how will the free market ensure an adequate home is found for the child. It won't, whoever pays the most effectively owns it. A pedophile's utopia.

I've also seen you endorse welfare as a means of crime prevention, so one could easily place orphanages in the same category. How would they be maintained? If they didn't exist there would be a lot more of those little bastards out on the streets commiting crimes. The only way for them to exist would be to use the children for corporate slave labour.

galenrox said:

It's not a tax since it's voluntary. If you don't want in on the private police force, you don't have to be. If you don't want your house protected by the private firehouse, be my guest. If you don't want to use the roads and you happen to be in an area where everyone happens to have the intelligence of a lemming, you don't have to.

There are not decisions that neccisarily effect the whole society, since the whole society would just be a bunch of individuals, and any individual has the option to completely remove him or herself from the rest of the bunch.

Click to expand...

So you're going to deny their kids too? Let their kids burn alive in a house because their parents thought they'd role the dice? Very humane of you. Then the fire spreads to three other houses that were supposedly covered by the fire house. Selectively applying collective goods is dangerous and costly. How are you going to tell? Are the police/firemen going to have to have a list that they check you off on when you need help? How will they be sure who you are? Are you going to issue an ID card? Who will be responsible for making sure there are no forgeries? What about medical care? I assume it's going to be even more privatized than it is now. Turning down people who can't afford it so their kids can die of strep throat. Sounds like a ball. Face it galen, a government is necessary to provide the level of organization our "societies" need to function. People advance when the cooperate. Working together has accomplished every great thing we have made. Anarchy has never, and will never be beneficial to the human race.

galenrox said:

You're basing all of these ideas off the assumption that people are completely indifferent to those sorts of things. If a parent with an unwanted child knew that a privatized adoption service didn't check and make sure that the kid was going to a good family, do you really think shoe would give them her kid?
Do you think that a society that knows they are responsible for what goes on in their world (and I mean actually knows, not this bullshit back of the mind thing that goes on today) would do business with companies that used kids for slave labor?
If Walmart took kids off the street and used them for slave labor, would you still shop there? I wouldn't. If people knew that through their money they are endorsing the practices of the businesses, I think it's pretty clear that they wouldn't either.
Do you assume that people are indifferent to pedophelia? That they'd just sit back as the person next door ****s little kids? Or would they, and the rest of the neighborhood, go into that house and beat the ****er senseless and take away his kids? Same, even if NAMBLA started up their own town, do you think the bordering towns would just sit back and let these guys rape kids, or would they come in and get the kids and beat those ****ers senseless?

Click to expand...

Get your head out of the clouds galen. People KNEW that Nike used child labor that amounted to slave labor. People still bought from them. Who's going to risk their life to rescue a kid next door when the guys got his own private security force?

galenrox said:

If the neighbors weren't idiots they'd call the fire house to come and protect their own houses. And if the kids were in there, do you think anyone, and I mean anyone, would quietly stand by and watch them burn? Hell no, you're being ridiculous.

Click to expand...

I am absolutely not being rediculous. You think a lot of people would run into a burning building to save someone else's kids? Think again. A firemen cannot always stop a fire from spreading, especially when they're not allowed to put out the source of the fire, since the people didn't pay for it.

You're once again assuming that no one cares about anyone else, and that the only reason anyone ever helps anyone is because of government. If that's the only reason you ever help anyone, then I have to question your morality, but it seems most people care about other people regardless of government.

Click to expand...

It seems? How do you figure? Do you think the people that bitch about paying taxes to poor people would pay it if they didn't have to? Good things aren't going to get you a functioning society. Law and order does that. And you cannot have either law or order without someone to enforce it.

People advance when they cooperate, I agree. People do not advance when they are forced to fit a mold created for 200 million people. People do not advance when their money is wasted throughout the endless amounts of beurocracy that will always exist with government. You need to face facts and realize that government is not even A reason people do good things, let alone the sole reason.

Click to expand...

And yet socialist countries today enjoy the highest living standards EVER. In history. Including any anarchist society you can think of. Government got us there. Not anarchy.

You're just afraid of the uncertainty, but that's life. If someone broke into my parents apartment right now to kill me, do you think having police will make a difference? No, so thus my security is uncertain. So is yours. Unless you live in a police department your security is always uncertain. Bad things happen, that's life. But you have yet to prove that government is neccisary, and considering all of the downsides of government, it would seem only logical that the best response would be its elimination.

Click to expand...

As you point out, uncertainty is a part of life. Big deal. At least now I know that if someone kills my mom, every effort will be made to bringing her killers to justice. And it won't matter how big of a "private army" her killers hire.

Kelzie said:

Just one...small...question. I missed a lot of this thread after you were insulting me, so if you answered already, just point me to the post.

How will you provide order without laws? Crossing your fingers? Relying on *snicker* human nature?

Click to expand...

it is Order that produces laws. Laws are not the originators of order.

If there were no order without government, how were people orderly to establish governments? You are putting the cart before the horse.

Language, Markets, Arts, and CITIES came about before insitutional governments did. Remember, Hamurabi's Code, the first written laws WERE POSTED IN A CITY. That requires Arts ((masonray and carving (I don't think they printed them then)), Language, Written Language, Social Order (as hamurabi was King) and the Order of a city.

Incidentally, Hamurabi's Code is hailed as a hallmark of civilization, yet is DEVISTATED Babylon.

Kelzie said:

How, exactly, would authority manifest itself in a society? Define it. How would your society get its authority to punish a murderer?

Click to expand...

You concern is not authority, but power. What you should ask then, is who will have the power to reciprocate violence toward violent people?

ANy society can set up limitless ways to punish instigators of violence, and it doesn't have to be limited to kidnapping and incarceration.

Pre-colonial Irelands had ways, Colonial US had ways. Typically a murderer met death, yet there are economic, social, and just ways to reciprocate even the most violent of crimes.

Western "Crimminal Justice" is not about Justice, it's about isolation, simply remove the "bad" person. Redress for grievences or Justice are not core concepts, only CONVIENIENCE IS. It's more convienient to isolate or kill a person, that to achieve Justice. When a person, who has done wrong, is locked away, the is NO JUSTICE for the victim, family, or community, and there is INJUSTICE *TO* The victim (if alive) family, community and state. But people are locked away, because when they are, we forget about them, carry on, and life is more convienient.

Economic or monetary redress, Humiliation and ostracism are some ways. Also, servitude, death or isolation.

Kelzie said:

I'm not quite clear what you are saying, but I don't think it's answering my question. How much authority isn't what I'm asking. How would a society get authority in the first place to punish a murderer?

Click to expand...

How else does any society attain power over an individual? Through force of numbers, force of arms, or some other coordinated method, like ostracism.

Authority is something acknowledged, Power is something "felt."

Kelzie said:

So would the entire society get involved every time there's a murder? Or every time they want a trade agreement, or to use another society's roads, or..well, you get the point. All of these thousands of people involving themselves every time the society needs to use its authority, how would they have time to do anything else?

Click to expand...

This is what property could solve.

Listen, you ask a lot of questions that are dealt with in Murray Rothbard's "For A New Liberty: the LIbertarian Manifesto." It's entirely anarcho capitalist and explains what you ask.

And no, the "entire society" (if such a thing could actually be isolated, ever, and especially in an anarchic state. To often people confuse society with nation.)

So, the affected and interested portion of society will deal with the issue, not unlike now.

Kelzie said:

So if a farmer wanted to buy seed, he would have to individually approach the business, despite the fact that the society as a whole could get a much better deal for the seed than one person?

And how would the society decide which roads to buy access too? Or which businesses to deal with? Or which laws the private security force should enforce? Or what to do if a bigger private security force from another society wanted to take all their land? What would they do then?

Would every single member of the society decide on every single issue facing the society? How would they have time for anything else? And how would they pay for the private security force, and the roads?

Click to expand...

So the individual farmer joins with other farmers... SO WHAT? is this that hard? Popel have been farming BEFORE institutional governments existed. What view do you imagine the world start in? Homo spaiens evolved, had not language, arts, trades, crafts, hierarchies, tribes or families, and wanting all these things (things of course they never new because there were none) the didn't form government, but governmetn MAGICALLY appears, and all the sudden there was order?

Listen, what IS SOCIETY? you keep talking about it, as if it has a singlular will, as if it were an actual Thing unto itself. IT IS NOT, society, at best, is a collection of individual wills. "Society" si a word you are using, as if it were a thinking, acting, feeling being. IT IS NOT.

Society doesn't EVER decide a damn thing, it can't because it is merely a simplification of the representative individual wills. All the people that make up "society" decide, in aggregate, the "will of society." "Society" is a word we English speakers use as a SINGULAR, when it represent a PLURAL.

Society is not actually Born, it can not think, it can not act, it can not "be" it can not die. It is a word use to simplify all that it represents: the total infinite interpersonal actions and beliefs of people.

you ask questions like houw would "society" decide which roads to buy? Well, the same f***ing way they deicde which loaf of bread to buy! ON A CASE BY CASE INDIVUDLA BASIS. Each person would express their desire, and someone would (for any reason what so ever of the individuals choice) choose to fulfill that desire.

If you wish (with any scincerity) to understand the anarchist beliefs, you must either obliterate or put to the side during the discussion your collectivist and statist beliefs and start from the ground up.

YOU MUST understand that ONLY INDIVIDUALS ACT, and DO SO of INDIVIDUAL CHOICE in an attempt to satisfy some percieved uneasiness. They may act by themselves or MORE LIKELY in concert with unfathomable amounts of other people.

Farmers can get together and buy seed in bulk, or they may not. People may deicde to build a road from point A to point B, or not. some may deicde tobuild one from A to B, other B to D, still more from E to F exclusively.

Who decides? The people that want something, and the people who can provide will do it. Case by Case

"Or what to do if a bigger private security force from another society wanted to take all their land? What would they do then? " they would probably just declare themselves a government. Or course, private security firms are easier to destroy than governments.

Furthermore, would you support one as such? Would you pay money to someone who is going to kill and steal from others? If you are, a government is the perfect place for you already.

Kelzie said:

Hardly, you didn't answer all the question. How would a society pay for it? I'm assuming they'd have some sort of private firehouse as well. Along with a private police force, private roads...seems like you're going to have to issue a tax. Along with add "tax collector" to the jobs of your private police force.

Are there, or are there not decisions that must be made that affect the entire society?

Click to expand...

How would a society pay for something they wanted? Money.

Private means no tax. If you want to use a resturant are you taxed? NO you either pay, or no service. If you go to the grocer, are you taxed (by the grocer, and not a result of the state)? no, you pay, or don't get the food.

What if you can not pay you ask? Either you go without, ask for help, trade labor, ask a neighbor, Ask a church, ask a charity, ask a relative ask for credit ro a loan, set up a network of people who help each otehr in hard times (communitarian group). in short, BE AN ACTIVE MEMBER OF SOCIETY. Be a good person, so when something bad happens, other people would be clamoring to help.

Imagine yourself, flat broke and hungry, and someone (a friend, nieghbor, family member, community leader, some benefactor) helped you. The day comes when the hard times are gone, and you are doing well, and your benefactor is now suffering, would you help them, or are you heartless? MOST PEOPLE HELP OTHER PEOPLE AND RETURN THE FAVOR.

Those that don't tend not to be helped anymore either. And that's fine, we don't need parasites in the world, feeding off generosity.