'The State' isn't some abstract evil, just look at the Vietnam War or the current wars in the middle east. How many thousands have died to catch one man who was never even convicted?
'The State' is an abstraction away from the particular human beings whose actions create these wars. Do we blame 'The State' for the U.S.'s role in the Vietnam war? Or do we blame LBJ and particular members of Congress? Do we blame 'The State' for the wars in the middle east, or George W. Bush and particular members of Congress?
It's easier to conceive of these things as if the big bad 'State' is causing problems. However, there is no 'The State' doing things. Some guy in an office somewhere wrote his name on a piece of paper, and that cause wars to escalate.
That's what I meant by "The State is an abstraction". If you're pissed off about Vietnam, blame LBJ. If you're pissed off about a war in the middle east, blame George W. If you're pissed off about BP, blame the president of BP.
If you're airing grievances at 'The State', you're focusing hatred at a non-existent abstraction. There is no 'The State'; there are only discrete, particular human beings.
When I refused to salute the flag in kindergarten I was yelled and physically forced to stand and salute. When I wrote my essay on why I didn't think America was the greatest country I got yelled at and got detention.
I sincerely doubt that kindergartners have the rational faculties required to be conscientious objectors to a particular governmental system.
If you look at the few instances in history where the state was successfully crushed and people returned to anarchism, people enjoyed much more healthy non-violent lives.
The State was not "successfully crushed". A particular group of ruling individuals were overcome. Later, a new group of ruling individuals took power.
Anarchists truly are just tilting at windmills. If you do not like what a particular individual does, then take it up with that particular individual.
But don't abstract away from particular human beings to some reified conceptual boogeyman. It's not helpful.
'The State' isn't some abstract evil, just look at the Vietnam War or the current wars in the middle east. How many thousands have died to catch one man who was never even convicted?
'The State' is an abstraction away from the particular human beings whose actions create these wars. Do we blame 'The State' for the U.S.'s role in the Vietnam war? Or do we blame LBJ and particular members of Congress? Do we blame 'The State' for the wars in the middle east, or George W. Bush and particular members of Congress?
It's easier to conceive of these things as if the big bad 'State' is causing problems. However, there is no 'The State' doing things. Some guy in an office somewhere wrote his name on a piece of paper, and that cause wars to escalate.
That's what I meant by "The State is an abstraction". If you're pissed off about Vietnam, blame LBJ. If you're pissed off about a war in the middle east, blame George W. If you're pissed off about BP, blame the president of BP.
If you're airing grievances at 'The State', you're focusing hatred at a non-existent abstraction. There is no 'The State'; there are only discrete, particular human beings.
When I refused to salute the flag in kindergarten I was yelled and physically forced to stand and salute. When I wrote my essay on why I didn't think America was the greatest country I got yelled at and got detention.
I sincerely doubt that kindergartners have the rational faculties required to be conscientious objectors to a particular governmental system.
If you look at the few instances in history where the state was successfully crushed and people returned to anarchism, people enjoyed much more healthy non-violent lives.
The State was not "successfully crushed". A particular group of ruling individuals were overcome. Later, a new group of ruling individuals took power.
Anarchists truly are just tilting at windmills. If you do not like what a particular individual does, then take it up with that particular individual.
But don't abstract away from particular human beings to some reified conceptual boogeyman. It's not helpful.
It's the state that enables them, and it's the state that prevents people from stopping it. The protests got so bad during the Vietnam war that politicians openly said they were in a revolution. It still didn't stop.
>The State was not "successfully crushed". A particular group of ruling individuals were overcome. Later, a new group of ruling individuals took power.
In the examples I provided, there were no ruling individuals after the state was crushed until they were overpowered by people who wished to rule them. The communities ran themselves.
Anyway, your argument cuts both ways. Just because the state does bad things doesn't mean we should ignore all the good it does.
Here's what I suspect he would say:
Good things: X, Y, Z.
Bad things: P, Q, R.
The State does X, Y, Z, P, Q, and R.
Anarchism does X, Z, Y.
Or maybe Anarchism does X, Z, Y, and Q...but Q is unavailable so it isn't bad that anarchism does it, since any organizational structure has Q-ness.
That's my guess: Anything good done by the state can be done by Anarchism. But all of the bad things done by The State wouldn't be done by Anarchism.
And we know this, because historically <evidence missing>.
Edit: By <evidence missing> i mean that we have no examples of anarchist societies that existed and thrived for 200+ years in our contemporary global community. We have little pockets of anarchism that leech off industrialized nations. But, as far as I know, there are no completely isolated, self-sustaining anarchist Nations who have a chair at the United Nations.
At best we have some hippies in St. Louis who eat out of dumpsters and distribute poorly written pamplets about "the man".
Rayofash, are you familiar with the Gilded Age? It was a time of minimal government interference. How would your system, one of even less government regulation, prevent a similar era from coming to pass?
In a socialist society the workers would own the business, in a capitalist society workers would have unions.
You claimed right there it wouldn't happen in a capitalist society. The Guilded Age was a capitalist society. Capitalism did not prevent it from happening. Unions were crushed by the far more powerful companies. So once more, how would it be prevented from happening again?
>For example, the Milgram experiments did not involve any threat of violence to the subjects whatsoever, yet in those experiments people were willing to administer what they thought were lethal electrical shocks to unseen victims simply because an authority figure ordered them to.
And of course there was the whole genocide of the Jews who for the most part didn't fight back, and almost none of the soldiers protested.
It's worth noting that the Holocaust really kicked into gear after a close to a decade of the Nazi government alienating Jewish people from every aspect of everyday German life, so that the average German, soldier or civilian, was less likely to empathize with Jews in Germany and especially less likely to empathize with the less assimilated Jews of Eastern Europe.
What does this have to do with anarchism, you ask? Well, the oft-cited method by which anarchist societies would deal with people in those societies deemed to be undesirable or disruptive would be to, essentially, shun them and alienate them from those societies.
Both history and psychological studies have shown that the number one key ingredient to getting people to commit or support violence against others is through psychologically distancing those people from their intended victims.
So, if the anarcho-community I'm born into decides I'm a pariah and shuns me, what exactly prevents that from spilling over into violence? Why stop at shunning when you can get right to the lynching?
Rayofash, are you familiar with the Gilded Age? It was a time of minimal government interference. How would your system, one of even less government regulation, prevent a similar era from coming to pass?
In a socialist society the workers would own the business, in a capitalist society workers would have unions.
You claimed right there it wouldn't happen in a capitalist society. The Guilded Age was a capitalist society. Capitalism did not prevent it from happening. Unions were crushed by the far more powerful companies. So once more, how would it be prevented from happening again?
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
Studies have shown time and time again humans are naturally non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing. Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.
Actually, there are several landmark psychological studies that show that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do, absent of any threat of violence.
For example, the Milgram experiments did not involve any threat of violence to the subjects whatsoever, yet in those experiments people were willing to administer what they thought were lethal electrical shocks to unseen victims simply because an authority figure ordered them to.
People can be non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing towards certain people, especially those they know personally and are in close contact with, but once there's any amount of psychological distance or deindividuation, that empathy and compassion flies out the window. Hence, the issue of translating non-hierarchical, anarchist-style organizing from small groups to larger societies.
People always get the wrong idea from the Milgram experiments. The person administering the test would use various prods to try and get the person to continue giving shocks:
If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:[1]
1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.
If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.[1]
The experimenter also gave special prods if the teacher made specific comments. If the teacher asked whether the learner might suffer permanent physical harm, the experimenter replied "Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on". If the teacher said that the learner clearly wants to stop, the experimenter replied, "Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly, so please go on".
Whenever they got to the 4th one, everyone refused. It shows that people are susceptible to pressure, but the one thing it definitely doesn't prove is that they respond unquestioningly to orders.
You seem to be more concerned with being viewed as correct, than listening to what others are saying. You appear to avoid a lot of challenges to your reasoning and/or logic as well.
Are you actually interested in having an honest/genuine debate with people here, because it kind of doesn't seem so.
Of course I am, it's everybody else who isn't.
No u.
NO, U!
That's not a helpful argument to have.
Rayofash, I think it would be incredibly helpful if you clearly defined your terms, and indicated examples of state-less anarchist groups who were able to sustain themselves for significant durations of time in the global society since...let's go since 1900.
Because, presumably, you think anarchism can support the lives of 7 billion people.
So, let's have an example of a sizeable anarchist community that was able to maintain its own infrastructure for a significant duration of time.
One anarchist society of...5,000+ people who lasted for...let's say 30 years....since 1900.
Edit: Because, otherwise, your argument is just "It's not impossible in principle!"
Studies have shown time and time again humans are naturally non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing. Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.
Actually, there are several landmark psychological studies that show that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do, absent of any threat of violence.
For example, the Milgram experiments did not involve any threat of violence to the subjects whatsoever, yet in those experiments people were willing to administer what they thought were lethal electrical shocks to unseen victims simply because an authority figure ordered them to.
People can be non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing towards certain people, especially those they know personally and are in close contact with, but once there's any amount of psychological distance or deindividuation, that empathy and compassion flies out the window. Hence, the issue of translating non-hierarchical, anarchist-style organizing from small groups to larger societies.
People always get the wrong idea from the Milgram experiments. The person administering the test would use various prods to try and get the person to continue giving shocks:
If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:[1]
1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.
If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.[1]
The experimenter also gave special prods if the teacher made specific comments. If the teacher asked whether the learner might suffer permanent physical harm, the experimenter replied "Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on". If the teacher said that the learner clearly wants to stop, the experimenter replied, "Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly, so please go on".
Whenever they got to the 4th one, everyone refused. It shows that people are susceptible to pressure, but the one thing it definitely doesn't prove is that they respond unquestioningly to orders.
Uh, not exactly. Something like two-thirds of the participants in Milgram's original obedience experiments did deliver what they were told would be a lethal electrical shock, due to nothing but psychological pressure and not the threat of violence.
Studies have shown time and time again humans are naturally non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing. Studies have also shown that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do if ordered and threatened with violence.
Actually, there are several landmark psychological studies that show that people will do horrible things they never thought they would do, absent of any threat of violence.
For example, the Milgram experiments did not involve any threat of violence to the subjects whatsoever, yet in those experiments people were willing to administer what they thought were lethal electrical shocks to unseen victims simply because an authority figure ordered them to.
People can be non-aggressive, empathic, and sharing towards certain people, especially those they know personally and are in close contact with, but once there's any amount of psychological distance or deindividuation, that empathy and compassion flies out the window. Hence, the issue of translating non-hierarchical, anarchist-style organizing from small groups to larger societies.
People always get the wrong idea from the Milgram experiments. The person administering the test would use various prods to try and get the person to continue giving shocks:
If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:[1]
1. Please continue.
2. The experiment requires that you continue.
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue.
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.
If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.[1]
The experimenter also gave special prods if the teacher made specific comments. If the teacher asked whether the learner might suffer permanent physical harm, the experimenter replied "Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on". If the teacher said that the learner clearly wants to stop, the experimenter replied, "Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly, so please go on".
Whenever they got to the 4th one, everyone refused. It shows that people are susceptible to pressure, but the one thing it definitely doesn't prove is that they respond unquestioningly to orders.
Uh, not exactly. Something like two-thirds of the participants in Milgram's original obedience experiments did deliver what they were told would be a lethal electrical shock, due to nothing but psychological pressure and not the threat of violence.
Well, it also has to do with the authority of the guy wearing the labcoat, and the idea that they're doing it to further human understanding, and all these other factors. It just seems a bit simplistic to point to it and say "see! people follow orders unquestionably!" when the only time the experiment had a 100% failure rate was when a direct order was given.
... I realize now that you're not doing that but instead saying that it was a case of people doing terrible things absent a threat of violence, which isn't what the experiment was about, but still a totally valid conclusion to draw from it. Sorry, I'm a bit hung-over.
Rayofash, are you familiar with the Gilded Age? It was a time of minimal government interference. How would your system, one of even less government regulation, prevent a similar era from coming to pass?
In a socialist society the workers would own the business, in a capitalist society workers would have unions.
You claimed right there it wouldn't happen in a capitalist society. The Guilded Age was a capitalist society. Capitalism did not prevent it from happening. Unions were crushed by the far more powerful companies. So once more, how would it be prevented from happening again?
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
It operated with minimal government. Private, non government entities held most of the power in people's lives.
And they were terrible. It was the government that reigned them in and fixed things. It was the government that helped people. It was not charities and good will that solved the problems.
Rayofash, are you familiar with the Gilded Age? It was a time of minimal government interference. How would your system, one of even less government regulation, prevent a similar era from coming to pass?
In a socialist society the workers would own the business, in a capitalist society workers would have unions.
You claimed right there it wouldn't happen in a capitalist society. The Guilded Age was a capitalist society. Capitalism did not prevent it from happening. Unions were crushed by the far more powerful companies. So once more, how would it be prevented from happening again?
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
It operated with minimal government. Private, non government entities held most of the power in people's lives.
And they were terrible. It was the government that reigned them in and fixed things. It was the government that helped people. It was not charities and good will that solved the problems.
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses (in fact the US army bombed the workers). The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event. And as is obvious today, the government still works for big business.
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
Could you please provide a clear definition of what constitutes a 'state"?
An entity with a monopoly coercivly maintained on violence and justice over a geographical area.
Thank you!
"An entity": Does this mean a discrete entity, such as a particular human being, a particular rock, or a particular duck? Or an abstractive entity such as a "team" or "organization"? I'm asking, "Can a particular king / pimp / general be a State?" It would seem to me that a particular person can coercively maintain a monopoly via violence over a geographical area. That's what pimps and drug lords do to maintain their markets. So, would these discrete individuals be states?
"monopoly coercivly maintained": A monopoly of what? Is this an economic monopoly? Or can this be a monopoly of a particular resource? Could a beet farmer maintain a monopoly over beets via coercion and, so, be a "state"?
"on violence and justice": Not sure what this means. Do you mean that The State has a monopoly on violence and justice? Or that The State has a monopoly on violence, and so is unjust? Or is it that The State gets to define what justice is, and in so doing it serves its own needs?
"over a geographical area": Is there a minimum size requirement? Any spatio-temporal region will cover a geographical area. A drunkard father could rule over his home via his monopoly of violent tendencies. Would the drunk father, in this scenario, be a State?
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses. The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event.
How exactly is "competition in justice" a good thing?
In the Jim Crow South, there was "competition in justice" between the local governments that wanted to throw uppity black men in prison, and the lynch mobs that wanted to torture and murder those same black men as public entertainment.
Rayofash, are you familiar with the Gilded Age? It was a time of minimal government interference. How would your system, one of even less government regulation, prevent a similar era from coming to pass?
In a socialist society the workers would own the business, in a capitalist society workers would have unions.
You claimed right there it wouldn't happen in a capitalist society. The Guilded Age was a capitalist society. Capitalism did not prevent it from happening. Unions were crushed by the far more powerful companies. So once more, how would it be prevented from happening again?
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
It operated with minimal government. Private, non government entities held most of the power in people's lives.
And they were terrible. It was the government that reigned them in and fixed things. It was the government that helped people. It was not charities and good will that solved the problems.
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses. The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event. And as is obvious today, the government still works for big business.
Wouldn't a "competition in justice" just look like a war?
I have my justice, you have your justice. Where do we go from there?
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
Just so I'm clear here.
You see in the Guilded Age large businesses with a monopoly of force. You see that force abused by those businesses. You think if there was no state, which there already effectively wasn't, those businesses wouldn't have done the exact same thing? Are you not aware it was the government that actually reigned them in and stopped them?
If you're in a room full of people who are calling you crazy and your response is, "All of you are the crazy ones," you tend to look like the crazy person.
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
Could you please provide a clear definition of what constitutes a 'state"?
An entity with a monopoly coercivly maintained on violence and justice over a geographical area.
Thank you!
"An entity": Does this mean a discrete entity, such as a particular human being, a particular rock, or a particular duck? Or an abstractive entity such as a "team" or "organization"? I'm asking, "Can a particular king / pimp / general be a State?" It would seem to me that a particular person can coercively maintain a monopoly via violence over a geographical area. That's what pimps and drug lords do to maintain their markets. So, would these discrete individuals be states?
"monopoly coercivly maintained": A monopoly of what? Is this an economic monopoly? Or can this be a monopoly of a particular resource? Could a beet farmer maintain a monopoly over beets via coercion and, so, be a "state"?
"on violence and justice": Not sure what this means. Do you mean that The State has a monopoly on violence and justice? Or that The State has a monopoly on violence, and so is unjust? Or is it that The State gets to define what justice is, and in so doing it serves its own needs?
"over a geographical area": Is there a minimum size requirement? Any spatio-temporal region will cover a geographical area. A drunkard father could rule over his home via his monopoly of violent tendencies. Would the drunk father, in this scenario, be a State?
In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.
>A monopoly of what?
On violence and justice. The state makes all the laws and is the only one allowed to use violence to enforce them in most cases. Of course you COULD try to run your own courts and police as a community, this has been tried before, but is usually stopped by the state. The state does give permits to security forces, but the security force is required to call the police to handle a situation except in extreme situations involving life or death.
>Is there a minimum size requirement?
This is very difficult to define, and is one reason people consider states to be illegitimate. Your example is good, is a drunk father ruling over his home with violence a state? Is he sovereign? What makes a state sovereign? There ability to enforce its laws? Other entities agreeing on its sovereignty? If I could get a million people to sign a petition saying I'm a sovereign state and my yard is my territory, am I a legitimate state free of the US?
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses. The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event.
How exactly is "competition in justice" a good thing?
In the Jim Crow South, there was "competition in justice" between the local governments that wanted to throw uppity black men in prison, and the lynch mobs that wanted to torture and murder those same black men as public entertainment.
The black men could go get help from an outside source in an anarchist society, but if they are racist too it's unlikely a democracy would help them any better. If all of society is racist, it doesn't matter if you have a state or not.
In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.
And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?
@rayofash: Thank you for actually answering questions and addressing people's criticisms, rather than declaring yourself "too busy" with your "real life".
In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.
And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?
That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
Just so I'm clear here.
You see in the Guilded Age large businesses with a monopoly of force. You see that force abused by those businesses. You think if there was no state, which there already effectively wasn't, those businesses wouldn't have done the exact same thing? Are you not aware it was the government that actually reigned them in and stopped them?
Eventually when people complained enough the government stopped the abuse of big business. It took a long time and thousands of lives though. It would have ended a lot sooner though had people been able to address the problems directly.
In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.
And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?
That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.
Making drugs illegal does make drug cartels stronger.
See: organized crime in the 1920's based around smuggling and selling alcohol. Not to mention modern Mexican cartels.
Rayofash, are you familiar with the Gilded Age? It was a time of minimal government interference. How would your system, one of even less government regulation, prevent a similar era from coming to pass?
In a socialist society the workers would own the business, in a capitalist society workers would have unions.
You claimed right there it wouldn't happen in a capitalist society. The Guilded Age was a capitalist society. Capitalism did not prevent it from happening. Unions were crushed by the far more powerful companies. So once more, how would it be prevented from happening again?
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
It operated with minimal government. Private, non government entities held most of the power in people's lives.
And they were terrible. It was the government that reigned them in and fixed things. It was the government that helped people. It was not charities and good will that solved the problems.
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses (in fact the US army bombed the workers). The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event. And as is obvious today, the government still works for big business.
These are specific problems with the current government, but they can be fixed by adjusting the existing system. It is entrenched interests, poorly functioning bureaucracy and corrupt people that are causing the problems. In many ways these negative forces are HELPED by removing the regulation and oversight that a strong central government can provide. When you work through small scale organizations without consistent oversight and rules you leave room for inefficiency and corruption.
Why do you think corporations work so well? They have a monopoly on control within their organizations and when they find problems that arise or new solutions to old problems they can FORCE everyone in their organization to adopt the new policy. I have seen workers do foolish, inefficient and dangerous things when not being properly supervised, even in cases where it caused them no benefit. We need a society with consistent rules and best practices that are upheld, not ten thousand small fiefdoms that will arise out of individualized self organization.
So is it the monopoly on force by the government that you believe provides the monopoly on justice for the wealthy?
How can an anarchist society provide equal justice without descending into mob rule?
He's a shy overambitious dog-catcher on the wrong side of the law. She's an orphaned psychic mercenary with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
Just so I'm clear here.
You see in the Guilded Age large businesses with a monopoly of force. You see that force abused by those businesses. You think if there was no state, which there already effectively wasn't, those businesses wouldn't have done the exact same thing? Are you not aware it was the government that actually reigned them in and stopped them?
Eventually when people complained enough the government stopped the abuse of big business. It took a long time and thousands of lives though. It would have ended a lot sooner though had people been able to address the problems directly.
They tried to deal with it directly. With the free market. It failed. What else would you have them do? Start a war with the companies and lose thousands of lives? Quite possibly losing anyway?
I mean what would prevent a powerful minority from having superior weapons and just forcing people to do what they want in your system? I mean actually prevent. Not what you hope or think would prevent.
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses. The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event.
How exactly is "competition in justice" a good thing?
In the Jim Crow South, there was "competition in justice" between the local governments that wanted to throw uppity black men in prison, and the lynch mobs that wanted to torture and murder those same black men as public entertainment.
The black men could go get help from an outside source in an anarchist society, but if they are racist too it's unlikely a democracy would help them any better. If all of society is racist, it doesn't matter if you have a state or not.
So rather than having those people oppressed by their local community being able to get help from an outside source known as "the state", they should instead get help from an outside source that's what, exactly?
Posts
'The State' is an abstraction away from the particular human beings whose actions create these wars. Do we blame 'The State' for the U.S.'s role in the Vietnam war? Or do we blame LBJ and particular members of Congress? Do we blame 'The State' for the wars in the middle east, or George W. Bush and particular members of Congress?
It's easier to conceive of these things as if the big bad 'State' is causing problems. However, there is no 'The State' doing things. Some guy in an office somewhere wrote his name on a piece of paper, and that cause wars to escalate.
That's what I meant by "The State is an abstraction". If you're pissed off about Vietnam, blame LBJ. If you're pissed off about a war in the middle east, blame George W. If you're pissed off about BP, blame the president of BP.
If you're airing grievances at 'The State', you're focusing hatred at a non-existent abstraction. There is no 'The State'; there are only discrete, particular human beings.
Again, it's not 'The CIA' doing things. Particular human beings engage in particular acts.
I sincerely doubt that kindergartners have the rational faculties required to be conscientious objectors to a particular governmental system.
The State was not "successfully crushed". A particular group of ruling individuals were overcome. Later, a new group of ruling individuals took power.
Anarchists truly are just tilting at windmills. If you do not like what a particular individual does, then take it up with that particular individual.
But don't abstract away from particular human beings to some reified conceptual boogeyman. It's not helpful.
Do you not read? I never said that.
It's the state that enables them, and it's the state that prevents people from stopping it. The protests got so bad during the Vietnam war that politicians openly said they were in a revolution. It still didn't stop.
>The State was not "successfully crushed". A particular group of ruling individuals were overcome. Later, a new group of ruling individuals took power.
In the examples I provided, there were no ruling individuals after the state was crushed until they were overpowered by people who wished to rule them. The communities ran themselves.
Here's what I suspect he would say:
Good things: X, Y, Z.
Bad things: P, Q, R.
The State does X, Y, Z, P, Q, and R.
Anarchism does X, Z, Y.
Or maybe Anarchism does X, Z, Y, and Q...but Q is unavailable so it isn't bad that anarchism does it, since any organizational structure has Q-ness.
That's my guess: Anything good done by the state can be done by Anarchism. But all of the bad things done by The State wouldn't be done by Anarchism.
And we know this, because historically <evidence missing>.
Edit: By <evidence missing> i mean that we have no examples of anarchist societies that existed and thrived for 200+ years in our contemporary global community. We have little pockets of anarchism that leech off industrialized nations. But, as far as I know, there are no completely isolated, self-sustaining anarchist Nations who have a chair at the United Nations.
At best we have some hippies in St. Louis who eat out of dumpsters and distribute poorly written pamplets about "the man".
Ahem. I will refer to the bolded.
You claimed right there it wouldn't happen in a capitalist society. The Guilded Age was a capitalist society. Capitalism did not prevent it from happening. Unions were crushed by the far more powerful companies. So once more, how would it be prevented from happening again?
It's worth noting that the Holocaust really kicked into gear after a close to a decade of the Nazi government alienating Jewish people from every aspect of everyday German life, so that the average German, soldier or civilian, was less likely to empathize with Jews in Germany and especially less likely to empathize with the less assimilated Jews of Eastern Europe.
What does this have to do with anarchism, you ask? Well, the oft-cited method by which anarchist societies would deal with people in those societies deemed to be undesirable or disruptive would be to, essentially, shun them and alienate them from those societies.
Both history and psychological studies have shown that the number one key ingredient to getting people to commit or support violence against others is through psychologically distancing those people from their intended victims.
So, if the anarcho-community I'm born into decides I'm a pariah and shuns me, what exactly prevents that from spilling over into violence? Why stop at shunning when you can get right to the lynching?
Like with the Guilded Age and Somalia?
Are you actually interested in having an honest/genuine debate with people here?
It kind of doesn't seem so.
That was an example of a stateless society. The Gilded Age was not stateless, nor did it have any lack of government.
Of course I am, it's everybody else who isn't.
People always get the wrong idea from the Milgram experiments. The person administering the test would use various prods to try and get the person to continue giving shocks:
Whenever they got to the 4th one, everyone refused. It shows that people are susceptible to pressure, but the one thing it definitely doesn't prove is that they respond unquestioningly to orders.
You seem to be more concerned with being viewed as correct, than listening to what others are saying. You appear to avoid a lot of challenges to your reasoning and/or logic as well.
Could you please provide a clear definition of what constitutes a 'state"?
No u.
NO, U!
That's not a helpful argument to have.
Rayofash, I think it would be incredibly helpful if you clearly defined your terms, and indicated examples of state-less anarchist groups who were able to sustain themselves for significant durations of time in the global society since...let's go since 1900.
Because, presumably, you think anarchism can support the lives of 7 billion people.
So, let's have an example of a sizeable anarchist community that was able to maintain its own infrastructure for a significant duration of time.
One anarchist society of...5,000+ people who lasted for...let's say 30 years....since 1900.
Edit: Because, otherwise, your argument is just "It's not impossible in principle!"
Which isn't really helpful.
Uh, not exactly. Something like two-thirds of the participants in Milgram's original obedience experiments did deliver what they were told would be a lethal electrical shock, due to nothing but psychological pressure and not the threat of violence.
An entity with a monopoly coercivly maintained on violence and justice over a geographical area.
Well, it also has to do with the authority of the guy wearing the labcoat, and the idea that they're doing it to further human understanding, and all these other factors. It just seems a bit simplistic to point to it and say "see! people follow orders unquestionably!" when the only time the experiment had a 100% failure rate was when a direct order was given.
... I realize now that you're not doing that but instead saying that it was a case of people doing terrible things absent a threat of violence, which isn't what the experiment was about, but still a totally valid conclusion to draw from it. Sorry, I'm a bit hung-over.
It operated with minimal government. Private, non government entities held most of the power in people's lives.
And they were terrible. It was the government that reigned them in and fixed things. It was the government that helped people. It was not charities and good will that solved the problems.
The Gilded Age is an example of a lack of competition in justice. The state owned all the justice, and it was in the hands of big business. In an anarchist society, there would be no monopoly on arbitraters or police officers. There was no justice available for the coal miners in the Battle of Blair Mountain, so they had to get their own justice.
This is something that could also happen in an anarchist society when there's a lack of competition in justice. But to say that it would not happen with a state government is wrong, because it clearly did.
It was not the government that reigned them in, the government reigned in the workers not the businesses (in fact the US army bombed the workers). The workers weren't able to unionize for 20 years after that event. And as is obvious today, the government still works for big business.
Thank you!
"An entity": Does this mean a discrete entity, such as a particular human being, a particular rock, or a particular duck? Or an abstractive entity such as a "team" or "organization"? I'm asking, "Can a particular king / pimp / general be a State?" It would seem to me that a particular person can coercively maintain a monopoly via violence over a geographical area. That's what pimps and drug lords do to maintain their markets. So, would these discrete individuals be states?
"monopoly coercivly maintained": A monopoly of what? Is this an economic monopoly? Or can this be a monopoly of a particular resource? Could a beet farmer maintain a monopoly over beets via coercion and, so, be a "state"?
"on violence and justice": Not sure what this means. Do you mean that The State has a monopoly on violence and justice? Or that The State has a monopoly on violence, and so is unjust? Or is it that The State gets to define what justice is, and in so doing it serves its own needs?
"over a geographical area": Is there a minimum size requirement? Any spatio-temporal region will cover a geographical area. A drunkard father could rule over his home via his monopoly of violent tendencies. Would the drunk father, in this scenario, be a State?
How exactly is "competition in justice" a good thing?
In the Jim Crow South, there was "competition in justice" between the local governments that wanted to throw uppity black men in prison, and the lynch mobs that wanted to torture and murder those same black men as public entertainment.
Wait. "Justice" needs to be subject to free-market forces?
Wouldn't a "competition in justice" just look like a war?
I have my justice, you have your justice. Where do we go from there?
You see in the Guilded Age large businesses with a monopoly of force. You see that force abused by those businesses. You think if there was no state, which there already effectively wasn't, those businesses wouldn't have done the exact same thing? Are you not aware it was the government that actually reigned them in and stopped them?
YOU'RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!
If you can answer this then you might understand why we keep bringing it up
Just saying.
In your example, pimps and drug lords could be considered a state in a way, but more in the way they behave. In fact it's a joke among anarchists that the tax dollars are similar to mafia protection payments. Usually a state would be a group or organization rather than an individual though. The individual(s) running the group or organization would be considered to be running the state.
>A monopoly of what?
On violence and justice. The state makes all the laws and is the only one allowed to use violence to enforce them in most cases. Of course you COULD try to run your own courts and police as a community, this has been tried before, but is usually stopped by the state. The state does give permits to security forces, but the security force is required to call the police to handle a situation except in extreme situations involving life or death.
>Is there a minimum size requirement?
This is very difficult to define, and is one reason people consider states to be illegitimate. Your example is good, is a drunk father ruling over his home with violence a state? Is he sovereign? What makes a state sovereign? There ability to enforce its laws? Other entities agreeing on its sovereignty? If I could get a million people to sign a petition saying I'm a sovereign state and my yard is my territory, am I a legitimate state free of the US?
So if the government exists based purely on the will of the governed its not a state?
The black men could go get help from an outside source in an anarchist society, but if they are racist too it's unlikely a democracy would help them any better. If all of society is racist, it doesn't matter if you have a state or not.
And yet you do not see why we are trying to explain to you that if you get rid of the state you will increase the power of the Mafia?
That's like saying making drugs legal will make drug cartels stronger. In an anarchist society people would be able to deal with the mafia directly rather than hoping the police takes care of it.
With pitchforks?
Edit: I'm envisioning lynch mobs as prime examples of anarchist justice.
Eventually when people complained enough the government stopped the abuse of big business. It took a long time and thousands of lives though. It would have ended a lot sooner though had people been able to address the problems directly.
Making drugs illegal does make drug cartels stronger.
See: organized crime in the 1920's based around smuggling and selling alcohol. Not to mention modern Mexican cartels.
These are specific problems with the current government, but they can be fixed by adjusting the existing system. It is entrenched interests, poorly functioning bureaucracy and corrupt people that are causing the problems. In many ways these negative forces are HELPED by removing the regulation and oversight that a strong central government can provide. When you work through small scale organizations without consistent oversight and rules you leave room for inefficiency and corruption.
Why do you think corporations work so well? They have a monopoly on control within their organizations and when they find problems that arise or new solutions to old problems they can FORCE everyone in their organization to adopt the new policy. I have seen workers do foolish, inefficient and dangerous things when not being properly supervised, even in cases where it caused them no benefit. We need a society with consistent rules and best practices that are upheld, not ten thousand small fiefdoms that will arise out of individualized self organization.
So is it the monopoly on force by the government that you believe provides the monopoly on justice for the wealthy?
How can an anarchist society provide equal justice without descending into mob rule?
They tried to deal with it directly. With the free market. It failed. What else would you have them do? Start a war with the companies and lose thousands of lives? Quite possibly losing anyway?
I mean what would prevent a powerful minority from having superior weapons and just forcing people to do what they want in your system? I mean actually prevent. Not what you hope or think would prevent.
So rather than having those people oppressed by their local community being able to get help from an outside source known as "the state", they should instead get help from an outside source that's what, exactly?