The Case Against Individualist Anarchism (by Shayne Wissler)

[Kristoffero]

Hey there folks,

 

I'm guessing this essay might have been read and discussed before, and if so I would ask if someone can redirect me to a post on the topic. But in any case I want to post the essay as it gave me some trouble with my thinking. 

 

I'm aware that he is 'basically' an anarchist aswell, but I do find the contradictions he brings up quite challenging. 

 

 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByyIBJqJ0pDBNE9ZRGlGSThfOVU/edit

 

Goodday

[NotDarkYet]

Could you summarize the most important point(s)?

 

What alternative is he proposing?

 

[James Dean]

Is it even worth reading the whole thing, I'm still laughing after reading how he defined government.

 

Its like saying "I fully support slavery, where slavery is defined as everyone having the freedom to decide what occupation to pursue."

 

What can be said to someone like this?

 

Edit: I got to about page 7 and stopped, he just defines government as voluntary and keeps saying "no really, it's not a straw man, trust me." I hate this style of debate. It's like he's so petty that he agrees with all the concepts he's just pissed you're using the wrong words. I could not detect an epistemological difference between his position and anarchism.

[Kristoffero]

I see join point James, and it is certainly the case that for every intent and purpose of today claiming that todays governments are consent based is insane. But this should be read in the context of a anarchy vs. minarchy debate. I still see a potential contradiction in the follow paragrafs:

 

 

First the definition: 

 

"I propose the following as a reasonable definition of government: A government is an association

 

 of individuals that formally identifies, enforces, and adjudicates the laws governing a

 

 given jurisdiction ."

 

 

Sure today, the law is both perverted in its identification, enforcement and adjudication. That is not the question. The question is, does it have to be so. 

 

He thinks the weberian 'monopoly of violence' definition is a the heart of the anachist idea of goventment as just per definition a violation of rights, when this is arguably begging the question. But he goes on to argue that governments does not have a monopoly, there are other institutions who can intervene (international, neighbours etc.). How is this essentially different from the strongest defence agency in town who claims the legitimacy and wields power to enforce the law they have sold to their customers under consent. If someone has a different defence agency, then some of the defence legislation will potentially differ from company to company. I haven't read it in detail, but as I have had explained this is what robert nozick's is considering in greater detail in 'Anarchy, State, and utopia'. (correct me if im wrong) How is the strongest defenc agency not going to have the upper hand and potentially final say in disagreements?

 

"In fact, the common concept of “national sovereignty” refers to nothing more than the attribute of

strength. It is the ability to defend one's arbitrary fiat assessment of a given situation using force that

creates the perception of sovereignty, but that kind of sovereignty exists as perception only, it is a

mirage and a myth compared to true sovereignty. Any anarchist “defense agency” with the same

measure of strength as a given government would appear to have exactly the same “sovereignty” as

that government. Might doesn't make right, but might will have its way in the world."

 

But what of the defence agency?  He argued that before we have a good conception of rights we have no way of knowing if the 'defence agency' is breaking them. 

 

 

"Curious questions emerge from the semantic anarchist definitions. If consent is violated by an

 

“anarchist defense agency,” then they do not call this anarchy anymore, they call it government. This

 

last fact raises the obvious question about just how much consent must be violated in order for the

 

formerly anarchic system to magically transform into government. Does it instantaneously switch

 

upon the first violation of consent? If the government makes restitution does it magically switch back

 

to being anarchy again? Or maybe it gets transformed by a declaration of sovereignty? If so, then what

 

if the formerly “anarchic system of law” that had existed (say) for a hundred years without competing

 

governments adds a law prohibiting them? Is it now instantaneously transformed from being anarchy

 

to being government even though by all appearances everything seems the same as it was the day

 

before the law? These questions underscore an inherent instability in the semantic anarchist's concept

 

of anarchy which is caused by combining facts that belong in opposite categories."

 

 

"And what about those facts isolated by the traditional concept of anarchy? Why does the anarchist

 

implicitly insist that it is unimportant to identify a “state of nature” condition where men have not yet

 

created a formal system whereby one can know whether or not one's actions will result in being left

 

free to pursue further action, or whether one's action will result in being attacked and thrown into jail?"

 

 

"These questions are of course rhetorical; they demonstrate in themselves that the semantic anarchist's

 

definitions are fatally flawed."

 

 

Is there a (potential) argument here? If not, please show why not?

 

Good day to you all

 

[powder]

Kristoffero, I will say up front that I have not read the article and based on what I have read in this thread I do not intend to.  You can let me know if I am missing something important but those are a lot of words there that don't amount to much as far as I can tell. Phrases like: "the obvious question about just how much consent must be violated in order for the formerly anarchic system to magically transform into government" are meaningless to me.  I understand the kind of compulsion that wants to understand and predict every detail about what it will look like when slavery is ended,...  but it is not helpful, you just have to do the right thing and let good people do what they will.  You just have to stop initiating force and let the flow of human compassion, empathy, ingenuity and cooperation take over and evolve into whatever form it takes.  

 

 

Whyshould anyone care about these semantic and rhetorical questions?  As long as people and companies are not violating the NAP and respecting property rights then who cares how big they are?  If they are making their customers happy, no problem.  If they stop doing that and start violating people's rights, then in a free market society the competition will step up and take over market share. Simple.  Will that happen gradually or overnight and require us to change our definitions?  Maybe, but who cares?  These are just words, anarchy is about universal ethical behavior.  

[JamesP]

I'm pretty sure that his essay is not going to advance the application of the non-aggression principle towards universality.

[labmath2]

Kristoffero, I will say up front that I have not read the article and based on what I have read in this thread I do not intend to.  You can let me know if I am missing something important but those are a lot of words there that don't amount to much as far as I can tell. Phrases like: "the obvious question about just how much consent must be violated in order for the formerly anarchic system to magically transform into government" are meaningless to me.  I understand the kind of compulsion that wants to understand and predict every detail about what it will look like when slavery is ended,...  but it is not helpful, you just have to do the right thing and let good people do what they will.  You just have to stop initiating force and let the flow of human compassion, empathy, ingenuity and cooperation take over and evolve into whatever form it takes.  

Slave-a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them (google).

Does one need to be legal property of another to be forced to obey them? The concern then is people will see slavery as defeated once the "legal property of another" part is abolished, while the "forced to obey" is still in place. I guess it depends on how you see it.

[James Dean]

 

I see join point James, and it is certainly the case that for every intent and purpose of today claiming that todays governments are consent based is insane. But this should be read in the context of a anarchy vs. minarchy debate. I still see a potential contradiction in the follow paragrafs:

 

 

First the definition: 

 

"I propose the following as a reasonable definition of government: A government is an association

 

 of individuals that formally identifies, enforces, and adjudicates the laws governing a

 

 given jurisdiction ."

 

 

Sure today, the law is both perverted in its identification, enforcement and adjudication. That is not the question. The question is, does it have to be so.

 

Yeah, not only is it perverted in it's current form, but it's never existed at all. He totally fails to point out that his definition of government has never existed, either. He cites the American Republic as an example of a bunch of small towns and city governments joining together to mutually protect property rights but this is not how the American Republic formed at all! All the American colonies were founded by charters from England! Not to mention the fact that George Washington wasted no time in establishing federal dominance with the whiskey rebellion immediately after the revolution. 

 

How is the strongest defenc agency not going to have the upper hand and potentially final say in disagreements?

 

It might. Who knows? It doesn't have any bearing on the truth value of the NAP or of property rights. It follows logically that a lot of things are immoral, including the government. See, he uses this red herring trick trying to paint anarchists like they're just "against the state" and he actually comes right out and says this when he compares Anarchism with Atheism (and mentions nothing about the validity of the arguments, only how his made up definitions are contradictory). This is completely false, Anarchism is one of the many logical conclusions you draw from the NAP, but it has nothing to do with the government fundamentally. He misunderstands both Anarchism and atheism here, saying Atheists also define themselves relative to "what a mass of deluded people find important." Again, this is totally false! Yes, a bunch of people have a delusion they call "god" but weather or not other people believe in a god has no effect on the existence of god or not. The reason that people feel the need to call themselves Atheists is not because they need to define themselves relative to collective fantasy, but because the truth is important to them and the truth is that there is not god, just like the truth is that the initiation of force is immoral. He is saying it's illogical to define yourself as an anarchist or an atheist but not a anti-rapist or an anti-santaclaus-ist or something.

 

Which is basically like saying to a doctor, "why don't you treat conditions like blond hair, or brown eyes, or the hiccups, or having 2 feet, or growing hair, or urinating." He would say, "none of those are diseases!" And just like doctors treat only that which harms the patient, philosophers focus on what is hurting people the most, not the stupid, self evident truths we all learn before the age of 2. It just makes me very angry! He's conflating a fictional character presented as fictional like leprechauns with the psychological torture of helpless children, the sadistic and evil act of brainwashing people into believing that a magical and all powerful vengeful super-being watches your every move morally judging you, and if you disobey any one of his thousands of contradictory and loosely interpreted commandments, you are brutally tortured for the rest of eternity. It's insensitive and it's un-empathetic on so many levels.

[powder]

Slave-a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them (google).

Does one need to be legal property of another to be forced to obey them? The concern then is people will see slavery as defeated once the "legal property of another" part is abolished, while the "forced to obey" is still in place. I guess it depends on how you see it.

First, you do understand that I am not talking about slavery, right?

 

That said,...  depends on how you see what?  who is being forced to obey who in a voluntary relationship?  

[labmath2]

I was attempting to represent an idea in the article.

So what is the answer to the anarchist's second objection? If we desire peace and prosperity, there is no other route to it than discovering the rational meaning of Natural Law, and then convincing one's fellow man of it. And just as Reason itself is self-correcting, a populace generally dedicated to peace and prosperity and Natural Law will ultimately correct those bad elements of society who prefer irrationality and the antithesis of Natural Law. And just what is this antithesis, this pursuit of one's own law in preference to the law that Reason would dictate? Anarchy. Even those politicians who pursue unjustifiable laws are, in essence, anarchists: they wish no law but that which their own whims dictate. The only real difference between a dictator and an anarchist is how many people he has duped into following his whims; the dictator has duped many, the anarchist, only himself. The dictator exerts his whims on others through the color of law; the true anarchist merely wishes he could do so.

 

If slavery is the ownership part, then it is pretty easy to end it, just get people to stop saying they own them, but if slavery is the ability to force to obey, it would be funny to force people to stop enslaving others. 

[powder]

 

I was attempting to represent an idea in the article.

So what is the answer to the anarchist's second objection? If we desire peace and prosperity, there is no other route to it than discovering the rational meaning of Natural Law, and then convincing one's fellow man of it. And just as Reason itself is self-correcting, a populace generally dedicated to peace and prosperity and Natural Law will ultimately correct those bad elements of society who prefer irrationality and the antithesis of Natural Law. And just what is this antithesis, this pursuit of one's own law in preference to the law that Reason would dictate? Anarchy. Even those politicians who pursue unjustifiable laws are, in essence, anarchists: they wish no law but that which their own whims dictate. The only real difference between a dictator and an anarchist is how many people he has duped into following his whims; the dictator has duped many, the anarchist, only himself. The dictator exerts his whims on others through the color of law; the true anarchist merely wishes he could do so.

 

If slavery is the ownership part, then it is pretty easy to end it, just get people to stop saying they own them, but if slavery is the ability to force to obey, it would be funny to force people to stop enslaving others. 

 

stuff like this makes it clear how important it is to define terms before entering into a debate.  wow.  

[J. D. Stembal]

I wish that the author would just admit that anarchy is scary and therefore he needs government to save him instead of inviting me to read 22 pages of savage straw man assault.

 

On the very first page:

 

 

 

There are market anarchists who do not believe that individual rights are moral truth. They merely claim to accept the ideal of non-aggression for personal reasons. But should one trust the word a person who claims that it's a myth that one shouldn't lie, cheat, and steal in order to get what one wants? I think not.  

 

Is he talking about ancaps? Which ones don't believe in the morality of the non-aggression principle? How could you then call them ancaps?

[thales]

Hello,

 

I'm the author of the "Against Anarchism" essay.

 

I'm writing this post reluctantly, due to the gross distortions and presumptions about my view posted thus far. I mean, someone who'd never read my works might take these misrepresentations at face value, but I the author can testify that they haven't really understood the first thing about what I've actually written.

 

Do my "critics" here think that it's important to accurately represent those who you are criticizing? From whence does the slipshod criticism spring? Did you simply not read what I wrote, or are you just afraid of viewpoints that might contradict your own?

[powder]

Hello,

 

I'm the author of the "Against Anarchism" essay.

 

I'm writing this post reluctantly, due to the gross distortions and presumptions about my view posted thus far. I mean, someone who'd never read my works might take these misrepresentations at face value, but I the author can testify that they haven't really understood the first thing about what I've actually written.

 

Do my "critics" here think that it's important to accurately represent those who you are criticizing? From whence does the slipshod criticism spring? Did you simply not read what I wrote, or are you just afraid of viewpoints that might contradict your own?

welcome to the forum thales.  Can you list a couple of key points that were misrepresented or not understood and explain why that is the case?  

[thales]

welcome to the forum thales.  Can you list a couple of key points that were misrepresented or not understood and explain why that is the case?  

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

Edit: I got to about page 7 and stopped, he just defines government as voluntary

 

This is an absolutely ridiculous misrepresentation. I never said any such thing.

 

I wish that the author would just admit that anarchy is scary and therefore he needs government to save him

 

 

 

Again, this is ridiculous. The truth is that I think anarchism is contradictory, which means it can never be put into practice, which means those who cling to it will be ineffectual and not get what it is they seek (a free society.)

 

The thing is, when you pretend to know my motives *and then you are very wrong about them*, you put me in a special position in assessing your own motives in doing such a thing.

[J. D. Stembal]

Telling us that anarchism is contradictory is not an argument against anarchism.

 

I read all of your essay back in September. My memory of it is a bit fuzzy, but I have the PDF saved.

 

Most of the essay is offering straw man arguments that are supposedly pro-anarchy, and attempting to refute them.

 

One page fourteen, from Anarchist Political Tactics:

 

 

 

To  be  consistent,  an  anarchist  must  either  reject  anarchy  or  reject  the  individual  right  to  form

government, and if he chooses the latter, then notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary, thus

reveal himself as not in actuality being a true defender of Man's Rights.

 

False dichotomy.

 

Why must the anarchists have to do either? Through free association, people are free to voluntarily form any system they want, from a commune to a company. If a group of people form a voluntary society, do they have to wage an ideological war against the other 196 states in the world in order to be consistent anarchists?  That doesn't sound very plausible in practice.

[thales]

EndTheUsurpation: Since you were the one who apparently thought you could do a long-distance mind-meld concerning my motives and got things very wrong, your judgement is in question and your summary assessment has zero credibility. What you need to do, at a minimum, is pick some specific statement I made and demonstrate why it is wrong (more likely you'll only be demonstrating why you have failed to comprehend it). Your mere opinion that my essay is a "straw man" is less than useless.

 

Nor is your excerpt from my essay relevant, since it's a mere conclusion not an argument. The arguments are in the previous 14 pages...

[powder]

Thank you.

 

 

This is an absolutely ridiculous misrepresentation. I never said any such thing.

 

 

Again, this is ridiculous. The truth is that I think anarchism is contradictory, which means it can never be put into practice, which means those who cling to it will be ineffectual and not get what it is they seek (a free society.)

 

The thing is, when you pretend to know my motives *and then you are very wrong about them*, you put me in a special position in assessing your own motives in doing such a thing.

I am not interested in the 'semantic anarchists definitions' but what could possibly be contradictory about voluntary interactions between people, we live our lives everyday that way.  

[thales]

I am not interested in the 'semantic anarchists definitions' but what could possibly be contradictory about voluntary interactions between people, we live our lives everyday that way.  

 

Why is what you are "interested in" relevant to universal philosophic principles? The argument is that, if you're interested in truth, you ought to be interested in using proper methodologies for defining concepts. So you are either question-begging or just giving us your philosophically irrelevant emotional states.

 

The more truth is on your side, the more sincere you are, the easier it should be to make a coherent argument. The less it is on your side and the less sincere you are, the more you will be prone to fallacy, as in the above distortions of my position, motives, or this latest oddity of decreeing what you are "interested in."

[QueechoFeecho]

I think it would be very helpful if definitions were established as a starting point.

[J. D. Stembal]

EndTheUsurpation: Since you were the one who apparently thought you could do a long-distance mind-meld concerning my motives and got things very wrong, your judgement is in question and your summary assessment has zero credibility. What you need to do, at a minimum, is pick some specific statement I made and demonstrate why it is wrong (more likely you'll only be demonstrating why you have failed to comprehend it). Your mere opinion that my essay is a "straw man" is less than useless.

 

Nor is your excerpt from my essay relevant, since it's a mere conclusion not an argument. The arguments are in the previous 14 pages...

 

I'll try again. Why does the anarchist have to either reject anarchy or reject an individual's right to form government? Might there be third (or fourth) option?

[thales]

I'll try again. Why does the anarchist have to either reject anarchy or reject an individual's right to form government? Might there be third (or fourth) option?

 

If I could answer this question as a straightforward forum post I certainly wouldn't have written the essay!

 

People generally do not buy into elaborate ideologies such as yours for trivial reasons, so untangling them is not trivial either. If you think that some particular step of my argument has gone wrong then address that step.