Some thoughts on some of these comments:

I think people are just confused by the word “anarchy.” The questions that are thrown out have been dealt with over and over again. As for people who say, “What’s to prevent A from ignoring the arbiter’s ruling to pay damages to B,” (and similar questions), they seem to forget what society is. I mean, good luck not paying judgments or going around punching people in the face in a free society based on property rights! You’d be a fool to clash so brazenly with the norms of the society you live in. It isn’t “self-discipline” as much as it is self-preservation.

Once ANY type of society is organized, the social pressure on the individual to conform is enormous. If the only institution of order around you is anarchic, you will do what you can to succeed and get along in that society just as you do under tyrannical states.

These types of questions miss the mark in that they imagine “anarchy” to mean the free-for-all looting and rioting they see on tv when state “order” breaks down for a spell. But what anarchists propose is merely a different kind of order – a voluntary one. Once voluntary institutions are allowed to grow and evolve, they become stronger and more stable because they gain legitimacy through the real consent of free-thinking individuals (not the phony “consent” of democracy).

So there will be order, one way or another, of one kind or another. And if freedom takes hold and people get a taste for it, you wouldn’t want to be that guy in all of the hypotheticals who decides he won’t resolve conflicts peacefully and in an orderly way because he’s somehow in an anarchy-of-one and doesn’t have to concern himself with what everyone else expects of him.

The war against liberty that the state carries out is NOT the prevention of cartoon anarchy – the riots and so forth. It is, rather, the concerted effort to maintain total control of society. The state is not afraid of the kind of “anarchy” you see in riots and violent protests and such. They are afraid of any societal ORDER which they do not control.

So imagining anarchy is just imagining more and more liberty in society. As long as people are not prevented (this is all the state does) from acting in their own best interest, they will create all kinds of arrangements for their economic and social well-being. The state merely forbids people from acting how they would normally act if they were free to do so. That’s the purpose of the thousands and thousands of “laws” out there. And to think that people want chaos and disorder, or that they will stand for it long, is just absurd.

I don’t think it takes a majority or even a large minority of anarchists to change society for the better, although it does take a certain number. My pet theory is that all it takes is enough people engaging in civil disobedience to give cover to the rest. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that if enough people refused to pay the IRS, for example, the system would collapse? It’s tricky, but if things continue to get worse and worse, the tipping point could come when enough people just flat out refuse to fill out forms and send in checks anymore.

If, at such a point, the state turns to outright violence against millions of these protesters, that will only de-legitimize it further. And if they realize this and thus refrain from violence, they will have lost a tremendous amount of power. This is how a massive secession might occur. And at such moments in history, there is ample opportunity for people to form alternative institutions. If there is
any hint that gov’ts struggling for legitimacy have toned down their threats of violence and back away from it, you could see a massive shift as people start taking charge of their own lives and are emboldened to start all kinds of new businesses and social institutions.

We have the seeds of what we need right now. We have private property in land (mostly-sorta-kinda anyway), the idea of free enterprise, the heritage of much freer early US, advanced technology, etc.
Even if all we get in the first major shift after the collapse of the USSA is 50 states which are less
threatening than the federal monster, we will have made progress.

So if we can imagine enough of “the people” resisting tyranny, asserting their property rights, forming their own institutions at a moment in time when the opportunity for such is ripe, then that’s “anarchy”, that’s the drive toward liberty which, if it can be sustained for a time, can fundamentally change the way people view society even if they never heard of anarchy and never understood it and never wanted it.

Peter said, “In the current government-run system, party A and his/her family and friends own the whole town…how is party B’s interest served, again? See the recent article about the farmer who wanted to grow enough grain to feed his chickens!”

I fail to see what the modern government’s abuse of Joseph Blattner has to do with my question. I understand that we have an unconstitutional abusive government today but let’s stick to apples to apples comparisons here.

What would be the advantage or difference in small constitutionally contracted government protecting its citizen’s rights vs. the justice that individuals could expect within the anarchist framework? What is there that would prevent an anarchist system from becoming just as abusive in the end?

“In a free world, if you were screwed by someone who then refuses arbitration, stop doing business with them and then seek out his other victims in helping to warn his future ones.”

Watch out mpolz’s about! What’s stopping you from refusing to deal with someone else now and telling everyone you know about him? What if you threaten to trash his reputation and his counter-threatens to the tune of “if you rubbish me around town and cause my business to go under then I’ll bury you as I will have nothing to lose”?

Besides what’s make you think everyone in Anarchotopia will have their own private piece of land in which they will have full sovereign ownership and rights?

Oh yeah, “they’re brainwashed”? I think you meant to say “they have a false conciousness”.

And your hardcore suggestion: do nothing and hope things will change in your favour one day! You sound like a nerdy dweeb hoping the good-looking cheerleader types will one day stop loving the big bad burly guys and find you and your chess club friends uber-sexy.

Mike C wrote:
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Or if party A happens to murder party B on party A’s property, or on uninhabited desert property, then what mechanism would there be for investigating or even trying party A for such a murder? If there is no private entity with any real interest in party B, that has the real teeth to truly enforce final decisions, then how would party B have any meaningful physical protection within such an environment?
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I might be able to address this point.
I’m guessing that private protection agencies would have it built into contract with their customers that they must investigate and prosecute in the advent of the customer’s murder.
Agencies that simply refused to thoroughly investigate the murder of their clients would gain a bad reputation and go out of business.

Mike C wrote:
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Or if party A happens to murder party B on party A’s property, or on uninhabited desert property, then what mechanism would there be for investigating or even trying party A for such a murder? If there is no private entity with any real interest in party B, that has the real teeth to truly enforce final decisions, then how would party B have any meaningful physical protection within such an environment?
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I might be able to address this point:

B’s family will call up PDA B to question A when A feels the heat he calls up PDA A. Since both PDAs are paid to protect their respective customers, PDA B tells PDA A they want to force punishment and restitution onto A but PDA A stand their ground with A. PDA A threatens PDA B that if they dare to set foot onto A’s private property there’s going to be a shootout. PDA B don’t want start a PDA war because they value their lives considerably more than B’s family so they stand around doing nothing, look at B’s family, shrug their shoulders saying “now what?” B’s family and PDA B turn around for home to have a funeral for B.

After the word travels out over the conflict between PDA A and PDA B – PDA B suffers loss of customers and income because they appeared to be weak and helpless whilst PDA A attracts new customers because they did what they were paid to do – protect their customers from outsiders.

“Blackwater? Who is going to [1] pay and [2] control Blackwater?”

LOL, indeed. 1. Someone other than you and me, as we are today. 2. They would probably go bankrupt without said money they’ve stolen and keep stealing from us. Imagining that say 15% of the country grew up overnight and dismantled D.C. and thus corporatism, I don’t know what we’d decide to do with war criminals like the gang at Blackwater. I’ve always fantasized about Dick Cheney and W. doing hard labor in a Guatemala banana plantation. Only one thing between me and this dream: 300,000,000 American ignoramuses like you.

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Jay says,

“I don’t think you’ve fully thought this through.”

That’s what we’ve got here, and the millions more like that all have as equal a say as the handful that have thought it through in a “Democracy”. The even smaller handful who have thought it through and get badges and titles (who are almost always motivated by lust for power and/or glory) always mop up under these conditions.

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It’s all so absurd: a complete disaster coming down on our heads, and the clowns who support it get to make fun of their own speculations and chimeras that *they* place in the mouths of those who oppose *all* crime. Bah!

Jay, I tend to agree with you about the mafia, as we know it, not being able to gain a huge foothold in an anarchic community, however, I could certainly envision the possibility of one trick pony towns or private gated communities within larger cities that might encircle the wagons, and be less than cooperative, to protect their own.

My original question, however, had more to do with loner type individuals who might be down on their luck, runaways, or people who do not necessarily have families that would miss them. If someone found a dead body in a ditch, who is even responsible for identifying them, figuring out where they are from in the first place, or how they even died? Then assuming that somehow someway party X was found guilty of the crime, who would ultimately be responsible for all the cost involved of jailing them, providing a fair trail, who would have any real authority to punish them anyway and would they simply hang them out back at xyz security agency or be required to house and feed them for the rest of their natural life?

…Just the things I think about when we talk of mini-archy vs. anarchy.

Matt said, “Look, let’s skip the logical reasoning exercises as that doesn’t seem to ring a bell and just stick to the facts. The countries in the world with the wealthiest, most developed and happy (well being) people are the richer, democratic countries who have a decent mix of free-market, free speech, a democratic elected government and some socialized system to take care of common needs of the people.

In a country like I live in (EU) the vast majority of people ARE happy, rich enough to live a good live and hard working to improve things that are not good enough yet. Saying that all those people are not happy with the current system but instead have somehow be brainwashed to believe they are is ridiculous.”

Obviously, the reason and logic that that brought you out of the dark ages, and gave you the freedom to express yourself thru your own productive efforts doesn’t mean much to you. The fact that you accept your bribe, as a happy content camper; within a half prison, shows a real lack of thought and appreciation for what you do have, and the people who fought and paid in blood to show you that you have the right, not the state sanctioned privilege, to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness… but then living in the EU you might not have heard of that yet.

The fact that you so easily accept corruption as the norm and think all should be ok with that??? I wouldn’t necessarily call it outright brainwashing, I would simply say that many get tired, give up, and become acclimated to their cages more easily than others.

Peter: “Because they were deists (atheists in drag)?”

Peter is obviously confused about what Deism is in the first place. Deist didn’t claim that God didn’t exist; they simply denied the claims of the Orthodox Church and thought that supernatural revelation was a bunch of worthless twaddle. However they were still highly moral men from a natural law perspective and they still accepted many the basic ethical tenants of Christianity. Jefferson even went to the trouble of writing his own version of the bible to express his own opinion about its wisdom

I wrote:
“Gil do you really think a private protection agency will attract more customers by protecting potential murderers?”

Gil replied:
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Yes absolutely! That’s what they would get paid for – to defend their clients’ interests! After all defence lawyers have to duty to protect their client from the onslaughts of prosecuting lawyers. ‘Potential’ is not the same as ‘definitely’. Besides, defence lawyers get business uptake when they get successful clients off the charges.

On the other hand, a PDA officer can’t just go onto someone’s else private property with inpunity interrogating and detaining people and searching for evidence. Even police officers need search warrants. The real world of the helplessness PDAs would be akin to a criminal who has left the country and the other country has no intentions of extraditing the accused (e.g. Ronald Biggs).

Suppose if PDA B tackle and cart away A away? Suppose A is able to call PDA A to rescue him? Can PDA A claim retaliatory force to retrieve A? Could a someone from PDA A claim that PDA B were going subject A to a kangaroo court and lynch him? Could an outright PDA war break out because both claim to right to being ‘in the right’?
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Firstly, if PDA B had strong evidence that an individual has committed murder, then the first thing they would do is contact and work with PDA A. It is in the best interest of both agencies to reach a result which is considered fair by the majority of society. After all, both PDAs are competing for the same customers.

If PDA A refuses to cooperate, then it becomes clear to everyone that their organisation has questionable merit.
Such actions would be damaging to the PDA as the negative publicity would drive away customers and send them broke.

It is in the best interests of both PDAs to reach a peaceful solution. Therefore, it seems clear to me that both PDAs would work together to best uncover the truth. Once an arbiter has been decided upon, PDA A would act as defense in the case while PDA B the prosecution.

I’m sorry Gil but I can’t accept your version of how events would unfold. No PDA in their right mind would barge onto another’s property unless they had a very strong reason to do so. (immediate threat)
PDAs who barged onto private property without a very good reason would lose customers (and therefore income) and may also find themselves open to being prosecuted by the PDA of the property owner.

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The obvious problem that it would impossible claim a PDA was criminal as there are no laws anyway.
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By criminal I meant “shady reputation”.
But yes there can also be criminal PDAs. If a criminal PDA violates your rights, then your PDA has an obligation to seek damages from the criminal PDA.

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Instead I would argue that micro-monarchies where everyone owns their own parcel of land isn’t going to happen. Private city-states are the most likely outcomes and the council of private landowners have monopoly jurisdiction and get to make the laws (“their land, their rules”) and everyone else (probably around 80% of the population) would find the most agreeable private town and settle there, pay rent and follow the rules. Such private towns would have no emigration restrictions (except having the person pay off certain outstanding debts maybe) and the private towns which were most found the best formula for keeping tenants staying becomes the model for other struggling private towns until an equilibrium was reaches where all towns were roughly the same. Surprise, surprise if the best formula turns out to be virtually the same as a minimalist, laissez-faire nation-state except on a smaller scale.
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Yes that’s quite possible. Society could evolve in this way. Since there is no monopoly of force, this would constite one possible anarchic scenario.
What you have described is not a minimalist government as you believe, but in fact a rental contract between the tenants and the land-owners.

Well done Gil, you have discovered yet another possible reason why anarchy could work.

I think the concept of competing jurisdictions is a bit too much for most people to take. Perhaps a softer semi-anarchy is a better transition to truly opening up the market for justice all the way. You can do that with co-op towns and cities. You can get rid of politics and still retain the “democratic” vibe by having each property owner be a stockholder in the corporation of the city rather than the useless title of “citizen” (tax-slave). You can have electric and other utility co-ops for the members/stockholders. The members could own their local roads. This way the most immediate concerns people have about where they live and the services they need are taken care of, but it’s de-politicized and turned into an economic joint venture. You move it into the economic realm where the members have actual control of the costs of the local services rather than having to submit to the vagaries of elective politics.

And since people fear change and the unknown, it’s probably best to put serious plans out there so that things are worked out in advance and people know what the direction is and what the goal is and who is who and what is what. Otherwise they freak out hearing anarchists saying, “Don’t worry, it’ll all work out.”

It may have to start politically as part of a secessionist self-rule movement, I don’t know, but once the ghost of politics is exorcised what you have is a cooperative venture and self-rule. The co-op utilities run at a small margin as non-profits since the consumers of the product are the owners.
And then of course you send delegates and vote for people to run the co-ops. The corporation can hire an outside security agency and have it apply the corporate rules of justice in that jurisdiction, and then relate to other jurisdictions the way towns, cities, counties, and states do now. And what if the “state” was a co-op of the smaller co-ops?

It’s a bit of a lefty concept because it’s “democratic” but also right-ish because it’s economically based in a corporation. In any case, co-ops have been proven to work, and they do seem to obviate the perceived need for political rule as well as big business since everyone simply becomes part owner of the city corporation and pays for services as consumers of those services in a more honest and direct way than through taxation.

What to do with dissenters? There’s the rub (unless you start a new community of willing participants). That’s why I said it may have to be political. It may be seen as a great way to reform politics, and then once things are running smoothly, people will wonder what the need for politics is since all the property owners have simply formed a corporation which serves their local societal needs. And renters would be sharing the property owners’ rights and duties when they choose to live there.

It’s an interesting idea to me because people will see that they are simply paying for the services they need and use, and that they are all *owners*
of this venture together. As consumer co-ops, the services aren’t tax-based, and that to me is revolutionary. Now, a dissenter could opt out of the utilities if they just spend their own money for wells, solar power, whatever. They could not opt out of the legal system though, unless things were working so well down the line that people lost their fear of competing justice systems. In that case, a resident might have to sign a contract with the city saying they will be obliged to meet minimum requirements for a justice agency, insurance, etc. if they choose to buy a house in that locale and not join the co-op.

Perhaps Joe moves from another co-op city which the locals are content with and don’t force him to join theirs but make an agreement with his justice provider on how any cases involving him will be handled. And that of course is the beginning of a fuller anarchy. It’s just that it’s easier for people to deal with now that things are established and working well enough not to scare people to death
with the idea of real liberty and real solid ways of enforcing contracts.

And then people can pick the style of management they like best if other cities and towns and counties follow the model. It may be that competition is not necessary on the local level for routine services since co-ops are efficient at providing quality service to their consumers because their consumers are also their owners! : )

It’s interesting. I wonder how far this can be pushed under present state laws. I think an excellent pilot project would be to establish just one town somewhere where people had abolished property taxes through this or other plans. That place would be Mecca!

Peter is obviously confused about what Deism is in the first place. Deist didn’t claim that God didn’t exist;

I didn’t say they did. I said “atheists in drag”, not just “atheists”, for a reason. They dressed up as non-atheists

they simply denied the claims of the Orthodox Church and thought that supernatural revelation was a bunch of worthless twaddle. However they were still highly moral men from a natural law perspective

As atheists generally are.

and they still accepted many the basic ethical tenants of Christianity.

That’s “tenets”—tenants are the people who rent your property

(There are people today who call themselves “Christian atheists” — see “Atheists for Jesus”)

Jefferson even went to the trouble of writing his own version of the bible to express his own opinion about its wisdom

Indeed; the Jefferson bible is about as close to atheist as you can get. (Through, contra fundamentalist above, there’s no evidence that Jefferson considered himself a deist…)

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The private city-states would fail the anarchist test because there are no competing, floating, overlapping jurisdictions. The private council of a private city-state claims a monopoly of force over the city and forbids competition for law & order. Thus this would be a state, albeit a private one.
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People can voluntarily leave at any stage and no longer have to accept the those laws.
Residents obey those laws as part of their voluntary contract to live their lives on another person’s property.
Therefore, once they step off that private land, they are no longer bound by the laws of the land’s owner.
The city-state, as you call it, is simply an organisation that people may or may not choose to be a part of.
It can therefore simply be considered to be nothing more than a complex organisation in an anarchic society.

The difference, Gil, is private ownership of the land. A nation-state claims jurisdiction over an area but doesn’t own the land.

@fundamentalist: actually I don’t mean the little stuff like my neighbor polluting a small river which goes over my piece of land. I mean the big national and global issues.
If we would live in a world with only a few hundred million inhabitants, living their live primitively on their own little piece of land I could see that – in theory – small pollution issues could be solved by some “court”.

However, we don’t live in the middle ages anymore. There’s 6 billion people on this planet, soon around 9 billion. Millions of gigantic private corporations. Every one of them, each individual and each company will use up limited resources and pollute the environment. If there are no agreements up front (and rules) this will continue until every last resource is used and the world is destroyed. This is not some treehuggers’ prediction but a mathematical fact if you look at the world population, growth of economy and principles of the capitalistic system. Then you finally have your Utopian anarchy, however, no world to live on anymore …