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Libertarianism, Anarchism, and Society with Voluntary Self Governance
Posts
So you think that if everyone in the world was actually dedicated to some sort of anarchist utopia, like everyone, that it would collapse because there is something in the nature of anarchism that necessitates its collapse?
I've popped in and out of this thread, and I don't know if this has been gone over before, but there's one thing that might motivate a productive discussion.
Is it important for the government to have the consent of the governed? Is that more or less valuable than the well being of the populace?
And if I could cast magic spells there'd be more naked women in my life, short of installing a chip in everyone's brain to make them think alike and abolishing all religions it aint gonna happen
Nope!
Because that's not what was being discussed.
That's an unrealistic goal. There is something inherent in the nature of anarchism that necessitates its collapse when we're talking about actual real world examples that could ever possibly exist. The only time anarchy can actually succeed is when it exists parasitically at the will of a host state.
That's not the discussion. We're not talking about a hypothetical world composed entirely of anarchists.
We're talking about, oddly enough, the world in which we live. The world in which we live contains States.
States, historically, kick the asses of anarchists.
So, in a world that contains a governmental force that decimates anarchism, is anarchism a viable means of social organization?
The answer to that question is "no".
We're not talking about how well roaches could live in a world without Raid. What we're stating is that in a world that contains Raid, roaches are pretty fucked.
There's a quote button for a reason.
This runs into a very real problem though.
There are millionaire libertarians who own thriving companies in America, right now, who went to private or homeschooling, and who lament the existence of public education "Because they don't use it". Millionaires who have dozens or hundreds of employees educated at public schools and perhaps millions of customers who purchase their product who have jobs befitting someone with a first world education.
The reason this is a thing is because people are ignorant about just how interconnected society is.
Now if you want to argue the finer points about proper dollar allocation that's fine and a worthwhile discussion, but people use way the fuck more stuff than they think they do. I use veterans benefits even though I'm not a veteran, because the economic situation of my area is improved by having more welders and tradesman trained at the local community college on the GI bill, just as a random example.
Nope!
Any system works in theory. That's a given. Ray's desire is to prove that it could work in reality. Which, thus far, it still does not.
That's not really useful though, you have to come up with a situation in which it works.
"it could work if everybody fervently believed it could work" is only slightly less lazy than "It could work if it could work"
As far as I can tell, we're discussing whether or not anarchists could maintain the lives of 7 billion people starting tomorrow.
The other conversation isn't really interesting. Pretty much any system works in theory.
Edit: Depending on your definition of "work".
If anarchism and libertarianism work so damn well, then why the flying fuck aren't these societies springing up like horny rabbits? Is it maybe, just maybe, they don't work, only function when they're completely hypothetical, and have way of holding up in a real-world situation?
Well, not everything works in theory. Hell, I don't even think that anarchism is desirable in theory. I'm solidly in the camp of paternalistic states.
Also, I think that it's totally possible for an anarchist system to work in reality. Not tomorrow, but it could work some day.
Everything does work in theory.
Democracy works just as well as your theoretical utopian anarchism too, watch this!
Imagine a world where everyone firmly believed in democracy, and any person chosen to lead took it as a great honor and was never tempted by outside influences, avarice, lust, or anything like that. Imagine if all politicians, judges, and police officers did their duty to the best of their ability and everyone gave one hundred percent approval. Also nobody commits crimes because they believe in the system.
Government by interpreting the will of a cat with some catnip can work if everyone believes it can work and always interprets the cat's messages as something other than "blow all the nukes up"
Well, it works until someone realizes what its problems are, and then decides to exploit those problems.
See: The history of humanity.
It works in theory.
Based upon it not being fundamentally self-contradictory, or what?
I mean, I'm all about baseless unverifiable reasoning. But even I think this conversation is goofy.
What about people without hands?
You mean... Handouts?
Charity.
I'm not clapping for those handless geese.
Edit:
hehe. What are they using to pull the bootstraps?
So rather than the state stepping in to protect the rights of minority groups being oppressed by specific communities, those minority groups should get together a big gang of supporters and have a rumble to decide who gets to decide what justice is?
Yeah, that really doesn't sound like a better alternative.
Assuming you're not using mind-control chips or whatever, and everybody simply agreed that anarchism was the best system, it might "work" for a generation (where "work" is defined as "the system does not collapse", a definition which pointedly ignores all the needlessly dead and starving people that come with anarchism). Then that generation would have children. Children will rebel against their parents as all children have done and will do forever and ever. Boom, anarchism falls to teenagers organizing shit and/or warlording it up.
Which is another way of saying you are never going to get everyone to agree, even on that which is true and correct, if for no other reason than some people are contrarians. There are still FLAT-EARTHERS, you will never ever get or maintain 100% global agreement on how states are bad.
The well-being of the populace in the long run relies on a government that is receptive to the needs of the people; right now, consent of the governed (defined as the ability of the people to dissolve or otherwise alter the government) is the only way to make that work. In the future, somebody will eventually establish the best of all governments, a benevolent robocracy. That great Mechano-Man leader will need no consent, because he will have both perfect information and perfect flexibility to respond to the public's present and long-term needs.
Until then, the people hold the ultimate power over the government, which forces the government to guard their well-being. Which, by the way, is why the state does not hold a monopoly on coercive force or violence; the people do, and use the state to wield it, no different from an anarchist society paying the best shot in town to ward off ruffians and keep the peace, only less convoluted and stupid.
I mean, if in an anarchist society I really like my neighbor's house, and I kill him and move in, what happens? Presumably if I do this enough times other people collectively go 'this sucks' and come deal with me.
The problem is that this isn't fundamentally different from what the state does! You're just talking about people determining what force is and is not legitimate on an ad hoc basis, rather than institutionalizing that decision by means of government.
my unofficial autobio will be accompanied with tips on how to smile
cause I've found that when they don't see you frown, they never know that you're a threat
and they don't sweat you when you came around
I like to think of it as a microcosm of why anarchy is bad, personally.
I mean, he's free to quote how he likes...right?
If these were anarchist forums, non-ruled by anarchists? Sure.
But I'm pretty sure that, according to Tube, this is a police state.
My Backloggery
I think that there is no real reason to believe that any state today has the consent of every person that is governed. Now, when I use consent, I'm not talking about the people's ability to dissolve or alter their government. I'm talking about the same kind of consent that you would give to another person to do something to you. Consent generally is thought of as being either explicit, tacit, or hypothetical. Explicit consent being quite literal. No one gives explicit consent to the United States government, generally. I've never really met anyone who did. It just doesn't really happen. Some people think that people give tacit consent to the government. You use services provided by the government and that means you consent to what the government does. However, that's problematic, because it actually seems to undermine the whole purpose of consent. It certainly isn't the case that because I use the police I consent to anything that the government does. Hell it doesn't even seem to be the case that if I use the police, I consent to everything the police do. We complain about what our government does, so we obviously don't give our consent to everything. Hypothetical consent is the notion that if we were in a position to create a society we would give consent, so thus we consent to this one. This is the foundation for most natural law theories of justice, and faces a number of problems. Mostly that it seems to have no real binding force. If I was asked to consent in a hypothetical situation, why does that matter for the real world?
I'm pretty comfortable with the fact that we don't consent to our government. I don't think that consent is really that important. But if you think consent is important, it should be troubling that there doesn't seem to be any way in which your current government has it.
Well, I think that the notion is that the community together would essentially figure out "the rules." Then it would be the case that you would opt in to those rules in order to get certain benefits, such as the protections of those rules. So you give up the ability to bash other people over the head and in return no one can bash you over the head either.
You may think that this looks a lot like our society does today. There's one difference though. You get a choice. You can choose not to participate. You can't do that in any country today. You can't just say, "nope, don't want the protection" in Kansas. The government doesn't allow that. This is the fundamental difference between a group that determines itself and one that doesn't.
Again though, I'm not an expert here. And this isn't even a position that I agree with, so don't rake me over the coals here.
The difficulty comes when those systems break down (such as the undue influence that money and business has on the US and UK governments). But there are also systems in place to course correct should enough people actually show up and demand that change.
Frankly, libertarians and anarchists get on my nerves because their arguments invariably can be boiled down to the idea that they know what's best and so theirs should be the force in charge. That's why a close reading of any proposed system of anarchy always has institutions of authority, they're just designed to be ruled by the proposer.
It is also why, as the libertarian streak in the GOP has grown their policies have become more and more self serving. It is antithetical to democracy and the whole of the enlightenment.
Can I point out that the majority of substantive arguments made in this thread, on behalf of anarchism, are made by persons who are not anarchists, and do not maintain anarchist beliefs?
We've had a few anarchists pop in, say some crazy things, and then pop out. Yet we've maintained a discussion by means of, primarily, it seems, devil's advocate posts.
That's weird, right?
If you'll allow me to play devil's advocate, I'd argue that it isn't weird if the purpose of discussion is to examine different points of view rather than convince PA to form our own anarcho-collectivist compound off in the backwoods of Arkansas.
I see these boards as a sort of informal debate club, so people playing DA doesn't strike me as odd as it possibly should.
This is an argument for tacit consent. It seems that you are maintaining that as long as I'm not doing those things, I must be consenting to what my government is doing, right? Think about it this way. I don't consent to the fact that in California, a constitutional amendment was passed banning gay marriage. I voted in that election. So what, that was it? I now consent to the law because my side lost? That means I have to consent to laws that I don't agree with. But then it's seems I'm consenting to things that I don't consent to. In fact, I'm not allowed to NOT consent to those laws. Because I'm forced to by the government. You may say there's no better alternative, but I don't think that you can, in good faith, argue that we actually consent to our government. Again though, I don't think that's a bad thing. Frequently people don't know what's best for them, and in that case, I don't give a shit what they do or do not consent to.
Also, J, that might be weird. All I know is that when I tend to argue in good faith in order to strengthen weak arguments against a position people tend to yell at me. So I have to always remind people that I don't hold these beliefs, I just think that it's always good to pit your arguments against others so that the overall result is a more well thought out position.
Sure but see, who's going to opt in and who isn't?
The community that wants to live peacefully? Most likely will choose to abide by the rules.
The dude with his small well armed militia? He's probably not going to surrender the advantage that he has by nature of his superior force, just because the community asks him really really nicely to not translate his military superiority into vast material wealth and comfort.
End result is, the people who have the advantage in force will exploit that advantage at the expense of everyone else. And since "everyone else" is composed of those who felt they lacked sufficient force to eke out an advantage, they get steamrolled into slavery or mass graves for their precious land and resources.
(I realize this isn't your personal position on the matter, so I'm not attacking you here. Just pointing out why this is incredibly unstable, and will end poorly every time.)
I didn't mean "weird" in a bad sense. It's just that, usually, we have genuine arguments on both sides.
In this thread, however, we have crazy people, Devil's Advocates, and then everyone else.
I like it, and it's a fun argument to watch play out...but I wish we had some true believers in anarchism who could actually articulate coherent arguments in defense of their beliefs.
You'll notice that this has been asked multiple times and he's never directly answered it.