Questions from a open-minded minarchist.

[POXER]

 

Hi! I couldn't find any section in the forums which was titled: "Minarchist's annoying and repetitive questions", so I'll try here.

My name is Martin, I'm a 21 year old norwegian freedom lover, a strong follower of the NAP, interested in philosophy and one of the most anti-state of the tumor-loving minarchists. I really would enjoy a state free world, if I could only believe it would be possible. Well is freedom possible at all in the current world?

A few of my problems with anarchism have been put to peace, especially by watching Stefan's videos on the issues. Issues like how can freedom work today (No minarchy society today would survive due to the nature of politics, so the question becomes irrelevant) or how we could make services, which indoctrinated people like me can at first glance find difficult to comprehend, work without violence.

My issues with a stateless society originate from three things; one is the nature of which anarchy can be abolished through concentration of military power and a sociopath in charge. Some minarchists would say that there is also no guarantee that liberty laws are produced, but that is a moot point; the same goes with minarchy. What does anarchists think about this? Is it even rational to believe that a world without a shred of anarchism will have sustainable state-less societies in the future?

The second is a more pragmatic approach to the NAP; which society leads to less initiation of force? A minarchistic state, and let us ignore the problems of the growth of government for now (that is my last issue), can easily portray way more guarantee for the NAP as long as taxes and government are based on truly voluntary transaction of donations than a state free one. As well as the role of government being reduced to only guarantee that other nations do not use aggression towards this society and an institution of a small army that guarantees that law production agencies do not produce laws that directly abuses NAP.

The last problem I have with anarchism, well it is actually about one of Stefan's major critiques of the minarchistic state; He says no peace of paper will stop an aggressor at the moment of violence; but the state is an "ecosystem" and cannot a structure of government with an undeniable strict and uncompromising constitution keep its limit. What about for example the Prime Law? (1: Do not break NAP 2: Force is only legal when someone breaks NAP" 3: 1 and 2 applies to all individuals, businesses, corporations or government and there shall be no exceptions.)

Is it truly as easy as Stefan states it, that there is no possibility to create a freer society? I feel as if he overstates the difficulty of it and do not even address Prime Law and other attempts to create a near perfect constitution.

I am sorry if this has already been answered before, but I couldn't find anything. 

 Also there will be typos, english is not my mother tongue.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

"Is it even rational to believe that a world without a shred of anarchism
will have sustainable state-less societies in the future?"

 

I don't understand this question. Anarchism and stateless society are synonymous. Can you rephrase this question?

 

"The second is a more pragmatic approach to the NAP; which society leads to less initiation of force?"

 

Why would we ignore an known component of statism in order to make an argument for or against it? Ignoring the fact that cancer kills, is it really that bad a thing to have?

 

"and
cannot a structure of government with an undeniable strict and
uncompromising constitution keep its limit. What about for example the
Prime Law?"

 

No. And there is no form of societal organization that can stop an aggressor at the point he commits violence. Contracts with a DRO wil not prevent you from being robbed. Nor will a one paragraph constitution and your ideal nation state.

[Existing Alternatives]

Welcome to the board, Martin!

I am a former longtime minarchist myself, so I think I understand where you are coming from. I crossed over when I realized that force = bad, government = force, less government = still force. To build on Bbeljefe’s analogy, a little bit of cancer is still cancer, and, most importantly, cancer always grows.

Your points more specifically:

1)      Anything “can be abolished through concentration of military power and a sociopath in charge.” Hopefully, in a stateless society, a sociopath would have hard time recruiting enough military power among freedom-loving people. Also, the same freedom-loving people will be able to resist any such concentration with their own means and arms. Btw, there is no one “in charge”.

2)      I would say anarchic society “leads to less initiation of force” than minarchic by very definition.

3)      Aren’t constitutions of the world designed to do just that? I would say Prime Law is contained in every single one of them in some shape or form. At the end of the day, they are still just pieces of paper, and fail every time to stop any kind of aggression.

The question you should ask is WHO is going to enforce minarchistic limits? Wouldn’t that be the same guys with guns who we are trying so hard to limit against?

Ultimately, minarchism has been tried and failed (see USA), anarchism has not yet, maybe we have a chance. For more information I would direct you to Stef’s podcast number 248, where he speaks about this at length.

Good luck in your journey!

[POXER]

1: If I rephrase it to: "Is it even rational to believe that a world without a shred of anarchism will have sustainable anarchism in the future?" does that make more sense?---The issue of minimal state.2:  Why? This seems like a huge oversimplification. There are plenty of "societal" programs and politics which reduce or increase violence (not that I'm saying that couldn't be done without them). My problem is how is anarchy any better? How is an approximation to NAP worse than something that will surely produce laws that accept death penalities for different crimes and non-crimes (like blasphemy or just being a minority)? How can you even conclude that the horrible constitution of the US, which enabled the massive production of capitalism and freedom for a century (more or less). It was so flawed and even then it worked for a long while. The basis at which minarchy and anarchy can work is absolutely the same; people really need to believe in individual freedom, non-aggression and capitalism. Without it states will emerge non-the less. So how is anarchy better in the real world?For this seems to be the main argument; USA was the best approximation to freedom. But it had at no moment a constitution written so clearly it could not be accepted as anything but the meaning of it, which lead to politicians having something to work on to do their twisted acts. 

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

 

1: If I rephrase it to: "Is it even rational to believe that a world without a shred of anarchism will have sustainable anarchism in the future?" does that make more sense?  - Yes it does, thank you. And to answer the question, yes it is. When we look at human history from the perspective of control and violence, we see less and less of both. The logical end to that trend is no control and not violence but, the realistic end is no organized control with a minimum of violence.

The issue of minimal state.
2:  Why? This seems like a huge oversimplification. There are plenty of "societal" programs and politics which reduce or increase violence (not that I'm saying that couldn't be done without them). My problem is how is anarchy any better? How is an approximation to NAP worse than something that will surely produce laws that accept death penalities for different crimes and non-crimes (like blasphemy or just being a minority)? - On what grounds do you claim an anarchic society will prescribe death as punishment for blasphemey or being a minority? That's an extraordinary claim for which you'll need extraordinary evidence.

How can you even conclude that the horrible constitution of the US, which enabled the massive production of capitalism and freedom for a century (more or less). It was so flawed and even then it worked for a long while. The basis at which minarchy and anarchy can work is absolutely the same; people really need to believe in individual freedom, non-aggression and capitalism. Without it states will emerge non-the less. So how is anarchy better in the real world? - Again, extraordinary claims. The constitution didn't enable freedom. It failed to deny it. It also failed to limit the growth of the state and thus, the loss of freedom we suffer today.

For this seems to be the main argument; USA was the best approximation to freedom. But it had at no moment a constitution written so clearly it could not be accepted as anything but the meaning of it, which lead to politicians having something to work on to do their twisted acts. - So don't write up a set of rules and don't appoint rulers. With no special rules and no monopoly on their enforcement, who's gonna take your freedom? In truth, America was it's best between the delcaration of independence and the ratification of the constitution... when there was no nation state.

 

[Existing Alternatives]

 

The issue of minimal state.
2:  Why? This seems like a huge oversimplification. There are plenty of "societal" programs and politics which reduce or increase violence (not that I'm saying that couldn't be done without them). My problem is how is anarchy any better? How is an approximation to NAP worse than something that will surely produce laws that accept death penalities for different crimes and non-crimes (like blasphemy or just being a minority)?

 

Let me try to less simplify this… Do you agree that government is the outmost initiator of violence in any society? If so, would not having less of the most violence initiator lead to less violence? Further, would not elimination of the most violence initiator lead to even less violence? Would not NAP be better that approximation to NAP?

 

 

something that will surely produce laws that accept death penalities for different crimes and non-crimes (like blasphemy or just being a minority)?

 

I am actually slightly offended by this. Where did you get death penalty from? For Blasphemy, nonetheless…

 

How can you even conclude that the horrible constitution of the US, which enabled the massive production of capitalism and freedom for a century (more or less). It was so flawed and even then it worked for a long while.

 

Not sure what your point is here… Do you think that US Constitution is horrible because it enabled freedom? My point was, that arguably (and I am not a constitutional expert here by any stretch) US Constitution is the closest we got to a recipe for a minarchist society. In many aspects it explicitly limited federal government and explicitly guaranteed certain freedoms. Despite all this, paper does not work against guns (or scissors).

 

The basis at which minarchy and anarchy can work is absolutely the same; people really need to believe in individual freedom, non-aggression and capitalism. Without it states will emerge non-the less.

 

What are you basing this on?

 

For this seems to be the main argument; USA was the best approximation to freedom. But it had at no moment a constitution written so clearly it could not be accepted as anything but the meaning of it, which lead to politicians having something to work on to do their twisted acts. 

 

 It sounds like you are suggesting that it is possible to write a document that everyone will voluntarily agree, clearly understand and automatically and permanently abide to. Is that correct? And you don’t think American “Founding Fathers” had a similar intent, is that correct? 

[POXER]

1: Production of laws will follow a market model right, isn't it expected that what people demand is what will survive in the law production facility? There are plenty of redneck towns around the world that would favor biblical laws for example. 2: Why both minarchy and anarchy needs people to truly respect NAP and individual rights to even be able to exist is quite obvious isn't it? If you have a huge majority within a society that loves the violent state of socialism; they will just enforce it anyway. Anarchy or minarchy.

[Existing Alternatives]

I am not familiar with “law production facility” concept, or why it is inevitable, but I will attempt to rephrase both questions at once…

So, you think (these are just thoughts, not absolute truths, right?) that absence of state will result in violent biblical or socialist dictatorship and you’d rather build a foundation for a state yourself, albeit a small one. Is that correct?

So, all these creators will have to do is to build up and expand the existing state as opposed to start from scratch? Would it not make a stronger case for anarchy? At least this way they’ll have a lot more work to create something from nothing.

[Existing Alternatives]

Btw, I am assuming that we closed off all previous discussions, since you did not answer a single clarfying question I posed…

[POXER]

I am sorry, ill with the flu here, my brain made "industry" into "facility".I will try to get myself to answer all the points, but what most boiled down to was the two things you pointed out A) Lawproduction in anarchocapitalism and how I believe it can produce really heinous laws and B) Minarchy/Anarchy which is better suited to survive.I'll be back later this evening trying to come up with a more consise response. 

[Existing Alternatives]

Hope you feel better, Martin. While you are recovering, I would recommend listening to Stef’s podcasts 248 and 249, where he addresses a lot of this in (obviously) much more cohesive manner. One point I would challenge you to ponder on is the connection between violence and the state.

 

 A) Lawproduction in anarchocapitalism and how I believe it can produce really heinous laws

 

You (personally) have no control over the law production. So, despite your best intentions, someone will come up with heinous laws. Why would you want to give anyone power to create these laws upfront?

 

B) Minarchy/Anarchy which is better suited to survive.

 

We don’t know whether anarchy is sustainable, but we do know that minarchism isn’t (easy example is the USA).

 

 

Btw, I was thinking about your earlier comment on there being no “shred of anarchy in the world”… Actually, there are plenty of such “shreds”. For example, let’s take your personal interactions with friends, storekeepers, employers, employees, etc. – how often do you resort to the state or violence in those? If your answer is none, then would not that qualify your little world as anarchic? If everyone else is in a similar situation, aren’t we all already living an anarchist’s dream (with an unfortunate overhead of leaches)?

 

[POXER]

Thanks for the kind words.Those are very good arguments, I'll come back when I'm not laying in bed and study them more thoroughly[]