How could anarchy work?

[WontStandForIt]

I asked this in an email to the call in show, but it has been almost a month without a reply. (Which is fair because how big the show is.) I agree with most of Stefan's statements about anarchism, and have read quite a bit of his "Everyday Anarchy" book  but I do not see how a society that is an anarchy would be able to have a defense force against countries like Russia, China or other empirical countries. What would you keep a group of people from simply deciding to forcefully take away land or resources from another group of people, or keep people from murdering each other, and keep parents from abusing children, etc. It seems that with anarchy, there would be great freedom, but only until someone has bigger guns than the population or another country decides that they want the population to be under their control, or someone with a knife wants to kidnap the little girl swinging on a swing while her mother goes to check if dinner is done. My question is why not try to reform the current system (Government) instead of completely getting rid it?

[dsayers]

My question is why not try to reform the current system (Government) instead of completely getting rid it?

Why not try to reform rape instead of completely getting rid of it?

 

The problems you talk about aren't solved with a State.

 

The external force question is one of simple math. Take the population of a country compared to the amount of that population that is part of the ruler/enforcer class. The ratio is ginormous. A country's government isn't stealing from every single citizen by coming in with bigger guns. It's done with child abuse, superstition, and threats. Do enough of these and then the fearful slaves will enslave the less fearful slaves to stay on the master's good side.

 

If there were am area of land where every person recognized that the initiation of the use of force is immoral, it would be much harder to conquer. It would also have no established system of institutionalized theft and would therefore be less lucrative to take over as well.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Reform it to what? 

[sb23rd]

Who's to say attempting to reform the system will not eventually lead back to square one, assuming such reform is possible? The state is a parasitic thing that once latched on it keeps sucking and grows larger from the human capital it consumes. No ammount of 'reform' can resolve the fundamental evil of coercion and the monopoly on force of current systems. This is a key point because it is impossible to remove the very thing that would not make it a state or government anymore. Look beyond 'asking for scraps' approach as this subject is too important for humanity and attempt to start from first principles instead.

 

The notion of defense against potential adversaries in a world of scarce resources is a valid concern but in an anarchic society people who want to will be armed to the teeth among the examples already stated. Current concerns of potential adversaries is largely the wizardry of the neo imperialist statists to keep the masses in perpetual anxiety. As long as there are self proclaimed rulers exempt from the morality and the 'laws' they enforce talking about reform is just a detour which eventually leads back to where you started and you realise the parasite is still latched on.

 

I recommend watching, if you haven't so already, Stef's 'They control humans with words'.

[regevdl]

I asked this in an email to the call in show, but it has been almost a month without a reply. (Which is fair because how big the show is.) I agree with most of Stefan's statements about anarchism, and have read quite a bit of his "Everyday Anarchy" book  but I do not see how a society that is an anarchy would be able to have a defense force against countries like Russia, China or other empirical countries. What would you keep a group of people from simply deciding to forcefully take away land or resources from another group of people, or keep people from murdering each other, and keep parents from abusing children, etc. It seems that with anarchy, there would be great freedom, but only until someone has bigger guns than the population or another country decides that they want the population to be under their control, or someone with a knife wants to kidnap the little girl swinging on a swing while her mother goes to check if dinner is done. My question is why not try to reform the current system (Government) instead of completely getting rid it?

 

 

Defiinitey read/listen to his other book 'Practical Anarchy'.  It goes into those things in more detail.  I would also refer you to Tom Woods.  He is not an anarchist and his radio shows doesn't talk about it but he DID interview another guy who wrote a book about it and I apologize I forget the guy's name but if you go to Tom Woods' website I am sure you can find it in the archives.  

[Jer]

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/63/war-profit-and-the-state

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/114/war-and-the-fantasy-of-protection

[WontStandForIt]

Why not try to reform rape instead of completely getting rid of it?

 

The problems you talk about aren't solved with a State.

 

The external force question is one of simple math. Take the population of a country compared to the amount of that population that is part of the ruler/enforcer class. The ratio is ginormous. A country's government isn't stealing from every single citizen by coming in with bigger guns. It's done with child abuse, superstition, and threats. Do enough of these and then the fearful slaves will enslave the less fearful slaves to stay on the master's good side.

 

If there were am area of land where every person recognized that the initiation of the use of force is immoral, it would be much harder to conquer. It would also have no established system of institutionalized theft and would therefore be less lucrative to take over as well.

But for instance, if the state were absent, what would keep me from going over to my neighbor's house and shooting them because I know they don't have a gun? (Of course I would not do this because it is horrible. But what about a horrible psychopath? )

[WontStandForIt]

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/63/war-profit-and-the-state

http://www.fdrpodcasts.com/#/114/war-and-the-fantasy-of-protection

Thanks for the links, I listened to both of these but they do not answer my questions, say that the U.S. government fell, what would keep it from simply just being taken back over by local mafia, or world powers such as Russia and China? Whether we actually wanted to be taken over other rulers would not stop the guns from being used to kill those who resist, maybe even leading to only woman and children and even some men that were submissive to be controlled by the new rulers, and the rest dead. At least in the U.S. that is currently existent we can petition to change something if we do not like it, leading to a solution. 

[WontStandForIt]

Why not try to reform rape instead of completely getting rid of it?

 

The problems you talk about aren't solved with a State.

 

The external force question is one of simple math. Take the population of a country compared to the amount of that population that is part of the ruler/enforcer class. The ratio is ginormous. A country's government isn't stealing from every single citizen by coming in with bigger guns. It's done with child abuse, superstition, and threats. Do enough of these and then the fearful slaves will enslave the less fearful slaves to stay on the master's good side.

 

If there were am area of land where every person recognized that the initiation of the use of force is immoral, it would be much harder to conquer. It would also have no established system of institutionalized theft and would therefore be less lucrative to take over as well.

So if there was an absence of state, and you had no weapons but had a family, and someone came to your house and pointed a gun at you and told you that he wanted all of your money (Whatever currency would be in an anarchy) and you had to die and see your family killed, or give away all of your money, knowing that there was no way of getting justice for that man's crime unless you hunted him down, leaving your family unguarded whilst doing so, how would that be better than actually having laws and law enforcement?

[grithin]

In the normal sense, anarchy can not work.  The normal sense is just the removal of government.  SM's anarchy is removal of government + liberty minded philosophical people.  This type of anarchy, I'll call, SM anarchy, could work, but probably would not.  Part of whether it would work depends upon two rising effects of patterns.

1. the pattern of smart people to come up with solutions.

2. the pattern of monopoly/compound formation in nature.

 

Most people are not familiar with #2, and if they are, they tend to be familiar with it in a very limited sense.  To understand #2, you have to understand three components and how they relate.  These components can be found in:

1. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations

2.C. Quigley's Books (read them all, they are all worth reading)

3. The studies of Ilya Romanovich Prigogine

 

There are other factors about SM anarchy that make it unlikely.  But, instead of asking this question, * * a better effort is creating a tribe in the systems that currently exist.  That is, find and work with people that share your values, and attempt to grow that group.  This is much the same idea of changing things at a local level as opposed to being ineffective at changing the larger system.

[dsayers]

grithin, your life is full of empirical evidence that anarchy works right now. People work together because it's a more efficient way to achieve our goals. Also, competition and consequences are free market forces that make it self-correcting. Monopolies will not form in a free market because it would mean that one product/service provider could literally satisfy EVERY demand better than everybody else for everybody else.

[grithin]

grithin, your life is full of empirical evidence that anarchy works right now. People work together because it's a more efficient way to achieve our goals. Also, competition and consequences are free market forces that make it self-correcting. Monopolies will not form in a free market because it would mean that one product/service provider could literally satisfy EVERY demand better than everybody else for everybody else.

 

Quite rude of you not to read more than the first sentence of my post, and then to reply in contradiction.

 

There are, from your post, many things you appear to be confused about.

 

First, the following are not identities

-  anarchy = working together

-  anarchy = free market

 

So, that I encounter "working together" and "free market" in my life is not empirical evidence that anarchy works.

 

Second, do you know who Adam Smith is? You are, ironically, attempting to school someone (me) who suggests reading The Wealth of Nations on "free market forces ... self correcting". 

 

I would continue about how tWoN book contradicts your last part, but I don't think it would do any good.

[WontStandForIt]

Defiinitey read/listen to his other book 'Practical Anarchy'.  It goes into those things in more detail.  I would also refer you to Tom Woods.  He is not an anarchist and his radio shows doesn't talk about it but he DID interview another guy who wrote a book about it and I apologize I forget the guy's name but if you go to Tom Woods' website I am sure you can find it in the archives.  

I listened to 3 hrs of Practical anarchy and it makes alot of sense when you add private protection agencies to the equation. That answers the question on foreign invasions, because nukes would keep countries from trying to invade a stateless society, but I still haven't found an answer for what would keep someone from committing a crime like rape to someone else. I guess that an defence agency could hunt that person down, but that may result in a war between the rapist's defence agency and the person that was raped. If you get killed why would your defence agency need to avenge you? It is not like they are going to get paid by you anyway. So to get away from any kind of punishment all you need to do it kill the person that you steal from.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

 Part of whether it would work depends upon two rising effects of patterns.

1. the pattern of smart people to come up with solutions.

2. the pattern of monopoly/compound formation in nature.

 

Most people are not familiar with #2, and if they are, they tend to be familiar with it in a very limited sense.  To understand #2, you have to understand three components and how they relate.  These components can be found in:

1. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations

2.C. Quigley's Books (read them all, they are all worth reading)

3. The studies of Ilya Romanovich Prigogine

 

This is not worth a response as it is. Please try again, and if you want to say anarchy won't work or might not work, please provide clear context to how these patterns effect anarchy and please be more specific than pointing to 3 books. If you want people to invest time into reading these books, you should invest more time in showing with logical argumentation how they are important instead of begging the question.

[dsayers]

Quite rude of you not to read more than the first sentence of my post

I can choose (not) to respond to whatever I choose. It's no indication of what I did or did not read. A distinction worth bearing in mind when trying to inflict "polite" as a standard onto others.

[Mister Mister]

 

 My question is why not try to reform the current system (Government) instead of completely getting rid it?

Sorry I know some people have already hacked at this particular sentence, but I wanted to take another angle at it.  This question presumes omnipotence.  If you were king of the world, this might be a reasonable question to ask.  But since we are merely philosophers, all we can do is to acknowledge what is true and false, what is right and wrong, and try to the best of our abilities to live our own lives accordingly.

 

  - If we are to have moral obligations, those obligations apply to all moral agents.

  - Governments are simply a conceptual label applied to certain people, but don't have objective properties that make them different from other people.

  -  People generally object to the use of force, teach their kids "don't hit, don't steal".

  -  Governments prohibit the use of force, i.e. they have laws against assault, theft, rape, and murder.

  -  Governments rely on theft, and threats of assault and murder.

  -  Therefore, government is simply a concept which assumes and imposes opposite moral rules on different groups of people based on nothing but a concept called government.  This is inconsistent, irrational, and hypocritical.

 

  Having accepted this basic truth, the questions you have I think boil down to how could a society without a government enforce moral rules?  There are two facets to the answer I think.  One is through private security agencies, which is a more complicated aspect which we will get to another time, but more importantly is through social forces.  Human beings are incredibly susceptible to social forces.  For example, there is no government law against using the word "nigger" in public, but people generally don't, because it is likely to have negative social repercussions.  This becomes even more true, the more economic power one has.  Look at the Mozilla executive who was fired and remains unemployed because he funded an organization which was anti-gay marriage, or the hysteria over the pizza parlor in Indiana that said they would hypothetically refuse to cater an imaginary gay wedding.  Stef has long argued that we can use these kind of social and economic pressures, which are generally applied these days to cultural hysteria and censorship, towards encouraging virtue, peaceful parenting, honest business dealings, and discouraging evil and nasty behavior.  Hope that makes sense.  Thanks for the question and welcome to the boards.

[csekavec]

But, instead of asking this question, * * a better effort is creating a tribe in the systems that currently exist.  That is, find and work with people that share your values, and attempt to grow that group.  

 

Exactly.

[WontStandForIt]

ncept which assumes and imposes opposite moral rules on different groups of people based on nothing but a concept called government.  This is inconsistent, irrational, and hypocritical.

 

  Having accepted this basic truth, the questions you have I think boil down to how could a society without a government enforce moral rules?  There are two facets to the answer I think.  One is through private security agencies, which is a more complicated aspect which we will get to another time, but more importantly is through social forces.  Human beings are incredibly susceptible to social forces.  For example, there is no government law against using the word "nigger" in public, but people generally don't, because it is likely to have negative social repercussions.  This becomes even more true, the more economic power one has.  Look at the Mozilla executive who was fired and remains unemployed because he funded an organization which was anti-gay marriage, or the hysteria over the pizza parlor in Indiana that said they would hypothetically refuse to cater an imaginary gay wedding.  Stef has long argued that we can use these kind of social and economic pressures, which are generally applied these days to cultural hysteria and censorship, towards encouraging virtue, peaceful parenting, honest business dealings, and discouraging evil and nasty behavior.  Hope that makes sense.  Thanks for the question and welcome to the boards.

(Thanks for the welcome!) It is already unacceptable to kill someone in society, but there are so many murders that happen anyway. Without Government to stop them, how would we keep sociopaths, psychopaths, and the rest of the crazy (Which already do not listen to social pressures.) people that may do it for money, and other things. Also private security agencies would be good to defend against other nations, but to protect a family from a gang of murderers or even a crazy individual, there would have to be a security detail with the family almost all of the time. This would surely be expensive and impractical. 

[Mister Mister]

(Thanks for the welcome!) It is already unacceptable to kill someone in society, but there are so many murders that happen anyway. Without Government to stop them, how would we keep sociopaths, psychopaths, and the rest of the crazy (Which already do not listen to social pressures.) people that may do it for money, and other things. Also private security agencies would be good to defend against other nations, but to protect a family from a gang of murderers or even a crazy individual, there would have to be a security detail with the family almost all of the time. This would surely be expensive and impractical. 

How do governments stop murder?

 

How do we stop governments from murdering?

[WontStandForIt]

How do governments stop murder?

 

How do we stop governments from murdering?

That is an easy one, there is a police force and courts that you can use to get justice. There is a known punishment for those who are murderers, and it is essential for governments to go to war sometimes, I do not agree that the establishment is right for training the heads of ISIS, but for example during WWII we needed to go to war after pearl harbor. The cold war was a success in some ways because the USSR went bankrupt. We for the first time had beaten communism. That was a good thing. During WW2 if we (The U.S.) did not fight, would that have been better? No. We needed to fight to keep fascism from growing. It worked pretty well.

[Mister Mister]

  Sorry, now you've jumped from preventing crime, to "just war" theory.  You didn't answer my questions really.  HOW does government actually stop murder?  And are you convinced that it does so in the best way possible.  Furthermore, once we give people this power and call it government, how can we stop them from unjustly killing people?

[WontStandForIt]

  Sorry, now you've jumped from preventing crime, to "just war" theory.  You didn't answer my questions really.  HOW does government actually stop murder?  And are you convinced that it does so in the best way possible.  Furthermore, once we give people this power and call it government, how can we stop them from unjustly killing people?

Government provides a police force, which can catch murderers, and detain them. They can put them through court. With evidence they will be convicted and given a sentence, that the public sets and agrees on. This used to be the electric chair, and now is lethal injection. The knowledge that people will be punished for doing something horrible keeps people from doing it. The left has definitely not done a good job on dealing with crime, so like I said before reform is needed. We keep the government from unjustly killing by due process of law, each person is innocent before proven guilty. There is a judge and jury. The jury of peers decide if the suspect is guilty or not. Also, the great thing about the U.S. is that no official is above the law.

[dsayers]

I think RoseCodex's questions were intended to invite scrutiny on your part, not just parroting the narrative AGAIN.

 

Government does not provide anything. It steals from everybody, keeps more and more for itself, and yes, invests some of it into people who will "righteously" threaten others, inflict the will of the leader class, and bolster the superstition that humans can exist in different, opposing moral categories. "Evidence" can be fabricated, guilty people released on technicalities, innocent people framed, and the public has no intervention, sometimes not even in a juror capacity. Murder still takes place where such disincentives are in place, making this a false claim, as well as a non-answer to the question your were offered. Every official is above "the law" because they ARE "the law," have friends in "the law," and so on.

 

It's absolutely mad to pretend that I can tell you that you can fly in your imagination AND that I get to limit where you get to fly within that imagination. This is the folly in turning to "some thing that some guy wrote down some time ago"--what you refer to as a law--for determining what's true: All they have to do is write down something different--sometimes even in that same moment!--and you'll be convinced.

[Mister Mister]

  Another interesting thing, WontStandforIt, is that you think people need a government to restrain their behavior, but when I point out that government is people, and ask how we can restrain THEIR behavior, you invoke something called "The Rule of Law"....So people need to be controlled with force, by people called the government, but the government, which is people, can be controlled without force, through "the rule of law".  Are you beginning to see the problem?

[Cornetto97]

A couple of things here, and you'll get these in stefan's anarchy books, you must understand anarchy does in no way say there will be absolutely no murder, theft, war, corruption etc. Next thing is that it is extremely hard and almost pointless to attempt to predict everything that will happen. We can discuss it as we are now, and put forward different arguments, and reasonings for why it will be better than the status quo, but we can never know for sure.

 

However there are some things we can rationally say, that is that ostracism has been proven through examples provided above to be extremely effective as we are naturally social creatures, who are most productive, And prosperous harmoniously. Also, the prosperity that we know arises from a free market with no central planning and coercive policies will elevate the populations that are the most crime ridden, and doomed to live in squalor becasue of the ever growing dependence on the cancerous welfare state, and its ghastly excuse for an education.

 

But if we can reasonably say that crime rates will very likely not increase and likely decrease, and if we can agree that the state is an extremely forceful and coercive entity that bends morality right around for their own self interest, then we can rationally say that the state is not needed

 

On another note the state doesn't exactly stop a crazed sociopath from murdering you, it sort of just steps in after the fact, unless of course you are able to call the police in time.

 

*i sympathise with you OP, i am quite new to FDR and the idea of a stateless society, but the deeper i peer into it the more i begin to break through what has been drilled into me my entire life.

[B0b]

Why not try to reform rape instead of completely getting rid of it?

 

Because it is impossible. I would try to reduce rape with practical measures, because "getting rid of rape" is just wishful thinking.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

Can we not reform government and work towards getting rid of it at the same time? I'm not saying I think government reform is possible in any meaningful sense, and you can see throughout history that any government reform does not last for long; but I don't see how the two goals are always exclusive. Since government is the initiation of force, getting rid of it is universally preferable to reforming it. In the same way, getting rid of cancer is better than reforming it to be only less fatal.

 

That said, saying something is "wishful thinking" does not reveal any logical reason to accept your position, but it only reveals your cynicism on the issue. 

[B0b]

Matthew, I am not cynical, I am just practical and realistic. 

 

And how do you get rid of the government when 80% or whatever of the population is in a favor of more government? By initiation of force against the government? 

 

Talking about a goal without having a clue about how this can happen in a lifetime, isn't this a perfect definition of "wishful thinking"?

[dsayers]

Saying rape is immoral is not wishful thinking. Also, the fact that you can't get rid of something horrible isn't a sufficient reason to settle for TRYING to reform it instead.

 

Saying 80% (as if assigning a numerical value makes it true or righteous) of people want government only serves to demonstrate that you're addressing the symptom rather than the problem. This is exactly what trying to reform the Mafia into a charity does. Unsuccessfully at that.

[B0b]

You said "getting rid of rape". This is wishful thinking. If you really believe there is a way to get rid of rape, then I am all ears.

 

If 80% (you think there are more than 20% anarchists?) of people do not want no government, but on the contrary more government, what do you do concretely?

 

I am not addressing anything, I am asking you how you how you go from 80% pro-government to no government? Since you like metaphors, how do you go from stage IV cancer to Olympian health? I personally do not have the recipe.

[WontStandForIt]

There is a couple of things that I want to state:

 

 

I think RoseCodex's questions were intended to invite scrutiny on your part, not just parroting the narrative AGAIN.

 

Government does not provide anything. It steals from everybody, keeps more and more for itself, and yes, invests some of it into people who will "righteously" threaten others, inflict the will of the leader class, and bolster the superstition that humans can exist in different, opposing moral categories. "Evidence" can be fabricated, guilty people released on technicalities, innocent people framed, and the public has no intervention, sometimes not even in a juror capacity. Murder still takes place where such disincentives are in place, making this a false claim, as well as a non-answer to the question your were offered. Every official is above "the law" because they ARE "the law," have friends in "the law," and so on.

 

It's absolutely mad to pretend that I can tell you that you can fly in your imagination AND that I get to limit where you get to fly within that imagination. This is the folly in turning to "some thing that some guy wrote down some time ago"--what you refer to as a law--for determining what's true: All they have to do is write down something different--sometimes even in that same moment!--and you'll be convinced.

I did not "parrot the same narrative" I gave a logical answer to his question. The government provides a PUNISHMENT for those who do things that are evil, and also the people in the U.S. government have to follow their own laws. Everything that you guys have mentioned has been things that the left side of government has done. I do not understand how you expect me to want to turn to complete anarchy when such anarchy would be chaotic. I came here with an open mind and I wanted to try to understand this new and radical idea. I asked what would keep a "PSYCHOPATH" from killing a man that prefers not to own a gun.

 

You guys tried to answer by saying that government does not solve the problem, but I gotta say that the people convicted of murder or another crime today have to definitely say that it is the reason that they are put in jail. Those people are punished for their crimes, and did not just get to do it and get away from it like they would in an anarchy. You guys cannot deny that.

[csekavec]

Sounds like you already have a firm opinion of what anarchy is. You say that in anarchy criminals are unpunished for all crimes. 

 

Poison the well much?

 

Your questions are just rhetorical. You aren't genuine or you'd have seen them answered above.

[WontStandForIt]

Sounds like you already have a firm opinion of what anarchy is. You say that in anarchy criminals are unpunished for all crimes. 

 

Poison the well much?

 

Your questions are just rhetorical. You aren't genuine or you'd have seen them answered above.

You added me on skype, why don't you get in a skype call with me and explain this in detail.

[Torero]

There is a couple of things that I want to state:

I did not "parrot the same narrative" I gave a logical answer to his question. The government provides a PUNISHMENT for those who do things that are evil, and also the people in the U.S. government have to follow their own laws. Everything that you guys have mentioned has been things that the left side of government has done. I do not understand how you expect me to want to turn to complete anarchy when such anarchy would be chaotic. I came here with an open mind and I wanted to try to understand this new and radical idea. I asked what would keep a "PSYCHOPATH" from killing a man that prefers not to own a gun.

You guys tried to answer by saying that government does not solve the problem, but I gotta say that the people convicted of murder or another crime today have to definitely say that it is the reason that they are put in jail. Those people are punished for their crimes, and did not just get to do it and get away from it like they would in an anarchy. You guys cannot deny that.

In your other topic you said you are 14 years old. That means you had 6 years of primary education and 2.5 years of secondary. No tertiary education (university), no fulltime work experience and in general very little life experience. That is not a shame (it's not your fault) but keep in mind that you have a lot to learn and -more importantly- to unlearn (and reading this government propaganda speech that process may be long)...

 

Governments do not stop psychopaths from killing; they hire them and make them snipers, infiltrators or president.

 

Imagine you are on a boat trip with an acquaintance who happens to be a psychopath with a gun. He knows you don't have one. You both sail to the Bahamas and all seems well. Which government is saving your life when he kills you at let's say 201 miles off the Florida coast and throws your body over board? In this "pretty" statist hell hole of 'yours' that guy just walks free. Psychopaths are excellent liars usually so he will make up a story hiding his killing.

 

Read RoseCodex' patient reply about "omnipotence" again. And take this example. Do you still believe your life is (so) safe in a statist system?

[WontStandForIt]

I got in a skype call with csekavec  and he explained everything, I understand it now. Please also do not think down on me because of my age. I just needed a direct conversation,