Maybe writing a book? maybe? maybe give me some feedback? maybe?

[LovePrevails]

spawned of debates, here in Scotland almost everyone is on the left, but I don't think most libertarian literature is written with the left in mind. being a former liberal I know how they think and trying to write this in the way that younger me would be most likely to be like hmmmmm a good point there

 

 

 

so this is written to the left, not to free marketeers

 

 

 

here is just the intro you tell me if you want to read more

 

 

 

Anarchism In Practice

 

All over the world people are searching for alternatives to the power-based structures which have dominated our world for so long. We have see the damage they have done: war, corporate welfare for the wealthy, bailouts from the public purse for powerful entities such as banks, the printing of currency at the behest of the ruling class which devalues the money of those who have saved their earnings robbing their income from them, concentration camps, and all sorts of other programs we may disagree with but are forced to pay for through the tax system at the behest of the state.

 

Yet, people find the idea of a society without Government idealist or even utopian.

Anarchists have long since preached that it is people who think a state could ever work who are the utopians, because states run based of force or the threat of force. It seems hardly possible to fund a war voluntarily, one must compel people to pay for it. The same goes for most of the other abhorrences we have discussed.

 

People resist the idea of anarchy though, because they can imagine how an ideal state might work, but they cannot imagine how anarchy will work. The purpose of this book is to provide some insights into the principles of how anarchism can work in practice in the hope of not only allaying those concerns, but providing a model should the state ever collapse (as it did in Detroit in 2013) so people have means to practical alternatives to domination systems which work based on mutual cooperation and voluntarism rather than force.

[Mister Mister]

  I like the idea, that you want to spend time talking about practical alternatives.  However I should think the introduction needs to be a bit more thorough (maybe you realize this) and at least briefly address the philosophical/moral argument, the argument from principles, before talking about effects.  When I talk about effects, I find that most people agree with the problems of war, drug laws, police corruption, and so on, although things like inflation and national debt is more obscure to most people; but they believe these things would not be a problem if more people agreed with them and were politically active.  In other words, the problems that we see as a logical consequence of Statism, most people see as only the result of "bad government".  When you say " states run based of force or the threat of force", most people will object to this, or dismiss it as radical, unless you really take the time to show them.  Until you do this, all your practical alternatives will sound insane to them, and feels as if you are imposing your "crazy" ideas about running society on them, the way we feel about Statism in general. So it is important to point out the definition of a government, and the inherent contradiction in calling something "good" or necessary for peace, law, and order, which is inherently the opposite of those things.  That anyone who engaged in this behavior without the veil of magic rituals, elections, flags, constitutions, legislation, badges, etc. would be considered a criminal and could not be shielded from the social consequences of their crimes by something called the "State".Maybe point out the inconsistency of a State enforcing laws against assault, murder, kidnapping, theft, extortion, fraud, and counterfeiting, while reserving these actions for themselves under euphemisms.  Also that we expect three-year-olds to understand and adhere to "don't hit, don't steal" but make exceptions for our so-called leaders.

 

  So what kind of "practical alternatives to domination systems" did you plan on writing about?  The bullet points I would want to hit are -

Security

Dispute Resolution

Currency

Welfare and Healthcare

Education and extending Voluntarism to children

ROADS!!!!  - make sure to include the possiblity that in a Free Society, Flying Saucers are likely to be invented within a decade or so, making the question of roads irrelevant except for nostalgic bicyclists.  "Where we're going, we don't need roads".

[LovePrevails]

Thanks for the feedback

  I like the idea, that you want to spend time talking about practical alternatives.  However I should think the introduction needs to be a bit more thorough (maybe you realize this) and at least briefly address the philosophical/moral argument, the argument from principles, before talking about effects.  When I talk about effects, I find that most people agree with the problems of war, drug laws, police corruption, and so on, although things like inflation and national debt is more obscure to most people; but they believe these things would not be a problem if more people agreed with them and were politically active.  In other words, the problems that we see as a logical consequence of Statism, most people see as only the result of "bad government".  When you say " states run based of force or the threat of force", most people will object to this, or dismiss it as radical, unless you really take the time to show them.  Until you do this, all your practical alternatives will sound insane to them, and feels as if you are imposing your "crazy" ideas about running society on them, the way we feel about Statism in general.

 

Ok this is not my experience, people what to know that practical alternatives work, the moral argument comes second, they make the lesser of two evils argument "Yeah, force is bad, but it's less bad than if..."

 

However, your points to actually meet the layout of the book -  in the next section (following)  which I'd be happy for your feedback in as it is a work in progress I lay out the moral argument. I am not going to hammer home the moral argument throughout the text, because if you are basically telling people they are immoral if they disagree with what you are saying then they see you as oppositional and are less likely to listen to you./ More likely to think you're  just arrogant or  using rhetoric.  

 

The main thrust in the book is showing that if you have the right mindset you can think of solutions to every problem in anarchy, all you have to do is understand the basic principles which are "put in place the incentive structure that whoever solves the problem the best gets the most rewards, the system constantly self-optimises, and if anyone does any damage they retain the entire moral hazard - then every problem will solve itself!" Choose a problem, figre out one way to fix it, and a thousand people will take your solution and find ways to improve it in a free market - that's it.

 

Ok, here it is:

 

Voluntarism - the principles of our everyday lives.

In our everyday lives we understand well certain moral principles: do not kill unless in an extreme of self-defense, do not assault, do not kidnap, do not rape, do not steal.

In the public realm there is a tendency to think these behaviours are acceptable if we call things by different names, eg. War (going over to other peoples lands and killing them) or Tax (forcing people to pay for things under threat of locking them up in a cage with murderers and rapists) or National Debt (buying things that the unborn will have to pay for instead of the living.)

If we are to discuss whether War or Taxation or are ever justified, we should first have the honesty to call these things by their real names.

For example, perhaps we will say "well it is fair to force people to pay for things even if they don't want to, because they accept services from Government in return," but if we are not willing to have the honesty to say that that is what we mean rather than apply euphemisms, then we perhaps have something to hide.

Perhaps it is the fact that this statement is somewhat akin to saying that a slave is consenting to slavery for a meal provided to him by his slave master, which was only provided by removing the product of his labour from him (the government has no money of its own, only that which it has taken, borrowed in someone else’s name, or printed.)

I don't want to get overly bogged down in the moral arguments for or against statism at this point. (A list of popular ones and objections to them are printed in Chapter/Appendix: Popular Arguments for Statism and Objections to Anarchy.) First I want to provide the alternative for you to see, and judge for yourself whether it is better or worse that what is in place. If you agree it is a far superior alternative to running society by coercion, the penultimate section is a discussion of what you can do to set up systems based on the principles of anarchy in the world, so they will serve as an example to others of what is possible, some of whom may wish to copy or improve upon your model. If we want to change the world we must teach by example. People want alternatives, not merely idealist concepts, that is why we have to invent them and put them on display.

This can be done in your family, within your friendships, romantic relationships, with children in your care, or in business or non-profit organisations.

 

 So it is important to point out the definition of a government, and the inherent contradiction in calling something "good" or necessary for peace, law, and order, which is inherently the opposite of those things.  That anyone who engaged in this behavior without the veil of magic rituals, elections, flags, constitutions, legislation, badges, etc. would be considered a criminal and could not be shielded from the social consequences of their crimes by something called the "State".Maybe point out the inconsistency of a State enforcing laws against assault, murder, kidnapping, theft, extortion, fraud, and counterfeiting, while reserving these actions for themselves under euphemisms.  Also that we expect three-year-olds to understand and adhere to "don't hit, don't steal" but make exceptions for our so-called leaders.

 

  So what kind of "practical alternatives to domination systems" did you plan on writing about?  The bullet points I would want to hit are -

Security

Dispute Resolution

Currency

Welfare and Healthcare

Education and extending Voluntarism to children

ROADS!!!!  - make sure to include the possiblity that in a Free Society, Flying Saucers are likely to be invented within a decade or so, making the question of roads irrelevant except for nostalgic bicyclists.  "Where we're going, we don't need roads".

 

 

thanks for these suggestions, I am encouraged to see that some of them I thought of too which means my thoughts on what people might need to see are echoed, others I will keep in mind

 

security is one of the first sections I started, lets see, this is all I have so far:

 

Most peoples main concern about how we could have a society without government is who would provide security without government?

In order to have a balanced view on this issue we must first be aware of the ways that government does not make us secure (more to come)

Do you feel more or less afraid around cops?

Secondly we may realise that most things which can keep us secure (locks, alarm systems, cctv, pepper spray, &c.) did not come out of government but in fact innovation in the sectors of society that were not controlled by government.

Government can only react after the fact, so for instance a crime is committed, and then you contact the police, or someone gets in an accident and then you call the ambulance

Government is not incentivised to solve problems, because any government department which solves a problem makes itself redundant – it is no longer needed. On the other hand, if they do not solve problems they can blame a lack of funding and grow. Therefor the incentive structures are such that Government is very unlikely to solve problems, by its very nature.

In order to have security we only have to set up the correct incentives for security to happen. The rest will take care of itself.

In this respect, on all counts, Anarchism is more about prevention rather than cure

The best solution will prevail

 

a lot of work needed there

[Mister Mister]

  Yes I like the general approach.  It's true that people often take offense with the moral argument, but otherwise it is hard for them to understand why you go straight from "there are problems with government currently" to "there shouldn't be a government".  For most people it sounds radical, "the best government is a balance".One general criticism I have is that your writing tends to read very "fast", that is, you burn through a lot of ideas in a sentence, that might be difficult for someone who is new to this stuff.  It might be easier to break it up into shorter sentences, and spend more time qualifying your statements, so that the argument reads more slowly.

 

ex:  "For example, perhaps we will say "well it is fair to force people to pay for things even if they don't want to, because they accept services from Government in return," but if we are not willing to have the honesty to say that that is what we mean rather than apply euphemisms, then we perhaps have something to hide."

 

This is quite a mouthful to chew on for someone who has never thought about it.  You might try rephrasing it like,  "For example, someone might say 'taxation is fair because people accept services from government in return'.  They might feel more uncomfortable calling taxation what it is, i.e. ' it is fair to force people to pay for things even if they don't want to, because they accept services from Government in return'.  If we are not willing to have the honesty to say that this is what we mean rather than apply euphemisms, then we perhaps have something to hide."  Just a suggestion  I hear this argument quite often, sort of trying to flip the against me argument on its head, accusing the person who doesn't pay taxes of stealing government services.  An easy way to blow this up, is ask, "what would it look like, without the badge?".  If I wash your car without your consent, then tell you that you owe me a certain sum that is not negotiable, and if you refuse I will use force, you would understand that you are being scammed or extorted.

 

In the last paragraph you gave me, I think you need some examples to explain yourself (you probably realize this)" we must first be aware of the ways that government does not make us secure"  for example? - of course you could write 100 pages on this I'm sure

"In order to have security we only have to set up the correct incentives for security to happen. The rest will take care of itself." how does that look?great stuff, please post when you have more written.  do you have an outline of the basic points you would want to approach?  One more I forgot to mention that people will often ask about is environmental protection.  good luck!