Can the State Improve a Hobbesian World?
Is social interaction without the state as bad as Hobbes and the public choice economists believe. Much of the recent analysis suggests otherwise. But maybe it is true that humans are inherently prone to conflict. Perhaps the Hobbesian dilemma is a real threat. Whatever the case may be, government does not seem to offer a solution. Either Leviathan is part of the problem or Leviathan is superfluous. Under either scenario, anarchy might be the best choice after all. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (32)
Have you never read "Lord of the Flies"?
Published: September 13, 2006 9:20 AM
The experiences of businessmen in Oklahoma over the past century might shed some light on the issue. Before the 1960's, roughly, businessmen sealed agreements in my state with a handshake, nothing more. At that time, a person's reputation was financially valuable. As time progressed, and reputations failed, people began to draw up contracts, but rarely used them to settle disagreements. Eventually, all business deals required contracts and lawyers to settle disputes. If parties couldn't agree, they went to court. Today, contracts are worthless. Regardless of the text, one or both parties immediately launch expensive and time-consuming litigation.
That doesn't mean that all Oklahoma business people are immoral. Most are very honest. It only takes a few dishonest people to ruin the whole system. Like prices, morality at the margins affects us all.
Could anarchy work? If enough people were of sufficiently high character.
What this debate seriously needs is input from the crowd that studies the nexus of culture and economics. Reading some of their work could make anarchists want to stick their heads in an oven and turn on the gas.
Published: September 13, 2006 9:44 AM
"Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind" by Lawrence E. Harrison is a good place to start if you want to learn about how culture affects economics.
Published: September 13, 2006 9:54 AM
Jay D,
Yeah, most of us have read many works of fiction, Lord of the Flies included. So what?
I mean, suppose that people really are so malicious as the portrayal in LotF suggests. What would be the mechanism for improvement? For a few of the boys on the island to refer to themselves as a government and impose their rule on the others?
This seems to be a recurring oversight in any sort of Hobbesian argument against anarchy. If we assume, as would Hobbes, that in the absence of government some will engage in predation against others, this doesn't settle the matter. We have a tremendous amount of empirical evidence to indicate that the persons in many governments have engaged in lots of predation against their citizens, others in the same government, other governments, citizens of other governments, etc. The real question then is "which is less bad?"
Published: September 13, 2006 11:59 AM
Anarcy is the Garage Sale form of civilization
Most people strive to live in anarchy, and by and large they succeed. What do I mean, you say? How can I be serious?
Well, most people avoid doing things that would involve the police. Not many people say "I can't wait to get a lawyer and go to court!" They break laws at their convenience, and vigilantes are not exactly crowding the streets to enforce the rules. On the other hand, there are myriad ways to cheat in transactions, but most people don't resort to them.
The State is important to some people. In particular, those who use its powers for profit and those who depend upon transfer payments. But the bulk of the citizenry pay their unfair share to Caesar and then fade into the shadows of anarchy with what they can salvage. The economy is like a water bed that bulges into another area when pressed upon by the State.
Increasing government regulation and intervention actually effectuates more anarchy. People work harder to circumvent the State, but that requires that more transactions be done in the dark with no possibility of appeal to the State for redress.
My conclusion is that anarchy is the preferred and natural state of human interaction, and that the more repressive government becomes, the more functional anarchy becomes. Every garage sale should remind you that anarchy reigns supreme!
Published: September 13, 2006 12:06 PM
The Silk Trade in the Middle Ages
A great example of how anarchy can work in practice is the silk trade in the middle ages. It encompasses all the classic problems with anarchistic economic interaction.
Independent traders had to traverse a route with many problems. There were bandits, but that was dealt with by voluntary groups formed for defence. The route passed through waystations where the rulers exacted tribute (the equivalent of toll roads), but the costs could not be so high as to deter commerce. Food and supplies were provided by and for participants who might never see each other again, but quality and prices were adequate.
The silk industry required many independent contractors to produce, transport, and distribute silk. Although we could argue that the process could be more efficient, it worked well with a spontaneous division of labor spread across thousands of miles between diverse cultures. Pricing mechanisms functioned in spite of limited communication and information.
Even if we argue that armies were involved in some cases, the Mongol tribes who straddled the silk route were a lot like private corporations offering services for a price. They couldn't force anyone to do business, and being overbearing would destroy the goose that laid the golden egg.
In short, lots of people got rich without needing an overarching government or succumbing to predation. The actors faced the most serious of hurdles and overcame them naturally through what amounts to private action. If we liquidated Nation states, we could function just fine. Just like the good ole days of global trade in past centuries.
Published: September 13, 2006 12:31 PM
And then there is eBay!
Ebay is an example of anarchy with the most anonymous Hobbsean dilemma we can contemplate. When you buy or sell on eBay, it is extremely unlikely that you will ever meet your counterpart.
If the merchandise isn't what you expected or the payment fails and the other party won't make good on it, it is unlikely that you will succeed in getting satisfaction. I know lots of people have been burned, and asking the State to intervene is a proverbial joke.
But millions of people are successfully transacting on eBay. Your reputation is worth something. EBay has controls and works out disputes (yes, they do so at the behest of government regulation, but they generally go beyond the legal minimums). People have consciences and a fundamental desire to fulfill their obligations. In the end, Ebay works extremely well.
And all this in spite of being an emminently abusable economic anarchy. If Hobbes was right, eBay would have failed miserably. But eBay is the darling of the internet because, thankfully, Hobbes is wrong. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Ha!
Published: September 13, 2006 12:52 PM
Anarchism works well in the marketplace. But what about other areas? As an extreme example, how would anarchism control the mafia, or Al Qaeda cells in our midst who just want to kill people?
Published: September 13, 2006 1:36 PM
Roger,
I'm thinking of several answers to that very reasonable question. I have one for you, though: what's your opinion of the way the government has handled terrorism? I find that people tend to act as though if you give the government enough money/power/resources/people/whatever it will be able to do a wonderful job protecting us from terrorism/Al-Qaida/bird flu/global warming/whatever. When we talk about what an anarchic society would do about a particular problem, it gets compared to some ideal way in which the government would handle said problem, which bears little resemblance to real life. So I am curious: do you think the government's handling of terrorism is at all competent?
Published: September 13, 2006 2:43 PM
"Anarchism works well in the marketplace. But what about other areas? As an extreme example, how would anarchism control the mafia, or Al Qaeda cells in our midst who just want to kill people?"
Roger, there is only one solution compatible with anarchy for any problem you may name and that solution is private property. If peaceful people were able to engage in gambling with their own property without the government harassing them, the mafia would just be another business. If airlines were permitted to restrict who may get on their airplanes and on what terms, they would reach the combination of security and costs that would best satisfy air travellers.
More importantly, even if the threat from the mafia and the terrorists were to increase in anarchy, the threat from governments would be reduced to zero. So it might well be the case that anarchy is the better option even if governments happen to have an advantage in one or two areas. Not that I think governments have any such advantage, but it doesn't really mean much to pick and choose things that governments appear to be good at.
Published: September 13, 2006 3:09 PM
The prison and Lord of the Flies examples are actually very easy to explain away. Children and prisoners are people who are not capable of behaving socially. We solve this problem by placing children under the supervision of adults, which is necessary to break up the occasional fight. Children do not care that there is or isn't a state, they simply don't yet understand the benefit of social cooperation. Prisoners are adult who never progressed morally beyond the level of children. (Case in point: social relations in high schools are identical to relations in prison. Teenagers form social cliques and gangs for protection.)
Hoppe solves this problem marvelously by specifying that it is natural elites who provide order. If a conflict arises people call upon an elite to solve the problem, and the elites acting on behalf of both parties sort it out with complete civility.
Published: September 13, 2006 5:40 PM
"...what's your opinion of the way the government has handled terrorism?"
I would give it a B. The US hasn't suffered an attack since 9/11 when we thought for sure we would. I'm disappointed that they haven't captured bin Laden, but that's Pakistan's fault, mostly.
"If peaceful people were able to engage in gambling with their own property without the government harassing them, the mafia would just be another business."
What about the protection racket where they tell you to pay protection money or they'll blow up your shop? Or all of the fraud schemes such as identity theft that the mafia use? Then there's the sex slave trade? The gov isn't doing a bang up job stopping them. The mafia is well-armed and financed. Could private companies compete? I don't know.
"If airlines were permitted to restrict who may get on their airplanes and on what terms, they would reach the combination of security and costs that would best satisfy air travellers."
Being privately owned doesn't make you omnipotent or all-knowing. Besides, terrorists could use shoulder-fired missiles to bring down planes. With their attacks being random and their desire to create chaos and kill people, who would pay for fighting them?
The US can't go after bin Laden because he's been hidin' in Pakistan and the Pakis won't let our troops in. What would private armies do?
Also, as someone mentioned in the article, professional armies almost always defeat militias. I can't think of an example when they haven't. How would you finance a pro military that could take on Iran, for example?
Published: September 13, 2006 8:27 PM
On a different tack, I lived in Morocco for a while and got to know a businessman there in the construction business. He educated me on how to do business in the country. Moroccans don't consider fraud and cheating to be immoral, unless you do it to a family member. They take a great deal of pride in cheating each other and spend a lot of effort in attempting it. Customers cheat business and businesses cheat customers; employees cheat employers and employers cheat employees. They consider good cheaters to be wise businessmen. But such an attitude drives up transaction costs dramatically because you have to spend so much effort and money to protect yourself. You can't rely on the police or courts because they're corrupt. Morocco is very Hobbesian.
I mention Morocco because I don't believe that type of society could succeed as an arnarchy. I think the reasons we have one of the most free countries in the world is our Protestant Christian heritage and lingering Protestant ethics. Anarchy might have worked here when we were more Christian, but I think we're drifting towards being more like Moroccans, so I doubt that it would work in the US today.
Published: September 13, 2006 8:37 PM
"What about the protection racket where they tell you to pay protection money or they'll blow up your shop? ..."
Pay someone else to deal with them, just like you pay the cops now, if that's how you think your money is best spent. Or buy a gun. Or a door lock. Or a dog. Or motion activated lights. Or insurance. Whatever you believe gets you the best security for the best cost. Just don't insist upon doing so with other people's money. I don't even see how the bit about a protection racket could be offensive to anyone who favors a state. Do you really favor a state and simultaneously object to an agency using force to compel people to buy protective services when they would rather spend that money in other ways?
"Being privately owned doesn't make you omnipotent or all-knowing."
Try denying the claims I actually make. It makes for more interesting disagreement. If you don't understand why private property tends to yield better results than collectivist solutions, google this site for the words "private property." The reasons I have in mind have nothing to do with omnipotence or omniscience.
"Besides, terrorists could use shoulder-fired missiles to bring down planes."
This is only telling against anarchy if the same couldn't happen in a world with governments. More generally, naming something bad that might happen in the world is only an argument against anarchy if you start from the assumption that governments are uniquely competent to deal with bad things. That may be, but you can't assume it in order to prove it.
"With their attacks being random and their desire to create chaos and kill people, who would pay for fighting them?"
Perhaps no one. So what? No one endorses anarchy as a way of ensuring that other perople's money gets spent on the things that you believe merit the expenditure. If you think that the cost of fighting terrorists is worth the benefit, then spend your own money on the effort. But understand that your subjective evaluation of those costs and benefits doesn't entitle you to make allocative decisions with any resources besides your own.
While you were attempting a point-by-point rebuttal of my previous post, apparently you missed the problem that undercuts your entire analysis. Even if other problems were to increase in the absence of a government, you can't cherry pick those problems and pretend that this establishes the case for the state. With a state there is a greater risk of high taxes, aggressive war, conscription, a monopolistic central bank, and so on.
Most of your questions seem like you misunderstand the issue in a way. Anarchy is not some new central plan intended to replace the central planning state that we have now, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to ask for a pre-fab solution to whatever problems you have in mind. See here for more. In a nutshell, whatever problems you are concerned about, you can deal with them as you please subject to the limitation that you don't force anyone else to subsidize your solution. If you want to hire a committee, pool your funds with 10,000 of your closest friends and take a vote, do nothing and take your chances, insure against risk, etc., you can do all of that and more. The only constraint is that you can't force anyone else to pay for what they claim not to want.
Published: September 14, 2006 3:11 AM
James,
You misunderstand my posts. I'm not opposing anarchy and I don't bring up those issues to prove that anarchy won't work. I'm asking anarchy supporters to show me how anarchy would handle those situations, because I honestly don't know. Maybe those situations could be handled by anarchy, maybe not. I added the extra detail about specific crimes because I don't want anarchists fighting a straw man, which I think they've had a tendency to do for a long time.
Your response to the protection racket shows that under anarchy, the businessman would be better off just paying the mafia off. Is that the kind of society we really want?
It seems to me that anarchist dismiss Hobbes as a crank and a pessimist. I think he was an optimist.
Published: September 14, 2006 8:33 AM
One wonders if these theorists enjoy any contact with concrete realities. One can speak of a kind of anarchy in societies numbering hundreds, but certainly not when speaking of immense collectivities numbering millions, functioning as an extremely complex industrial economy, and composed of an extremely heterogeneous citizenry. Under such circumstances, anarchy, like democracy, is a chimera. The realties of rule and power are quite different. Moreover, in our egalitarian and very comfortable society, people foolishly believe that all men are the same. They are not all the same, they run the gamut from criminal to saint, from fool to sage, and the average man is just that--average in virtue and average in intelligence. Currently, we are rule by knaves, and given the overall reality of a proletarianized citizenry and a bottomlessly trivial "cutlure" we ought not to expect anything else.
Published: September 14, 2006 9:58 AM
One wonders if these theorists enjoy any contact with concrete realities. One can speak of a kind of anarchy in societies numbering hundreds, but certainly not when speaking of immense collectivities numbering millions, functioning as an extremely complex industrial economy, and composed of an extremely heterogeneous citizenry. Under such circumstances, anarchy, like democracy, is a chimera. The realties of rule and power are quite different. Moreover, in our egalitarian and very comfortable society, people foolishly tend to believe that all men are the same. They are not all the same, they run the gamut from criminal to saint, from fool to sage, and the average man is just that--average or mediocre in virtue and in intelligence, and very much subject to all kinds of passions. Like it or not men will always be ruled by the non-average. The question is, will they be good men or knaves? Currently, we are ruled by knaves, and given the overall reality of a proletarianized citizenry and a bottomlessly trivial and largely materialistic "culture" we ought not to expect anything else.
Published: September 14, 2006 10:46 AM
How can the government be praised for preventing a terrorist attack on US soil since 9-11, when in fact, the government funded and supported Al Qaeda in the Cold War and in the Bosnian War?
Does any reasonable person credit Clinton for preventing a second attack on the World Trade Center when he was in office? Of course not.
The only defense statists have for why we need government is to pander to people's fears. They need to try to scare people with potential threats both real and imagined. The spectors of climate change, pandemic diseases, Islamic masterminds, drugs, crime, etc are all used to cause us to clamor for help from that great problem solving organization known as the government. If government is the cure, then the cure is worse than the disease.
Published: September 14, 2006 12:01 PM
The difference between the Mafia and the government is that when you pay the Mafia for protection, you get protected. Thieves who mess with Mafia-protected businesses disappear. In a private security regime, that is what you want, so we could argue that the Mafia is already doing quite an efficient job.
And if you think Mafia pressure is bad, try telling the government to get lost because you don't want their services. They will sieze your business and put you in jail. Sounds equivalent to or worse than organized crime to me.
What about terrorists? In a decentralized society, terrorist would be useless because there is no polity that could be influenced en masse. Terrorist acts would be between the perpetrators and the immediate victims. That reduces it to simple acts of violence.
Terrorism is directed against Nation States to influence public opinion against governments. If there is no government, then terrorism has nothing to war against. Think about it--al queda doesn't know you by name and therefore cannot view you as the object of terrorism. It is the government they are after. Get rid of the government and there would be no terrorism.
But the real problem with anarchy is that people would just form a government to take advantage of their neighbors. So we might as well accept that there is going to be a State and concentrate on using its power to our advantage. Be pragmatic.
Published: September 14, 2006 12:49 PM
"Terrorism is directed against Nation States to influence public opinion against governments. If there is no government, then terrorism has nothing to war against."
Actually, terrorism is just a means to an end. The terrorists want to create chaos first and cause the people to lose confidence in their government in order to make it easier for the terrorists to form a government. All terrorists have the goal of establishing their own government.
Published: September 14, 2006 1:17 PM
"Your response to the protection racket shows that under anarchy, the businessman would be better off just paying the mafia off."
Really? Look at my response:
I've broken up my original response into numbered parts. Which one "shows that under anarchy, the businessman would be better off just paying the mafia off?"
And you are still missing the point I made earlier: Anarchists are not proposing some alternative central plan, so you are making a category mistake to ask how we plan to deal with, say, the mafia. Rather, the idea is that you could deal with the mafia any way you please so long as you don't force others to subsidize your preferred solution.
Since I listed six possibilities which could be combined in 720 different ways and you read this as implying that businessmen would be better off just paying off the mafia, your best option under anarchy might include hiring a consultant.
Published: September 14, 2006 1:21 PM
Is there a definition of a state?
Published: September 14, 2006 3:03 PM
"Or buy a gun.
Or a door lock.
Or a dog.
Or motion activated lights.
Or insurance."
Are you serious? Do you know anything about the Mafia?
"Pay someone else to deal with them, just like you pay the cops now, if that's how you think your money is best spent. "
That's one of the perennial problems with anarchy; I have to stand by myself against a well-funded, very large, well-armed, well-organized criminal organization. How much of a chance do you think I have of funding my defense by myself?
Insurance? Sure, my kids would benefit from my liefe insurance policy.
Published: September 14, 2006 3:24 PM
“the standard and non-controversial definition of the state�:
as that organization which possesses either or both (in actual fact, almost always both) of the following characteristics: (a) it acquires its revenue by physical coercion (taxation); and (b) it achieves a compulsory monopoly of force and of ultimate decision-making power over a given territorial area.�
http://www.mises.org/etexts/hhhonmnr.asp
Published: September 14, 2006 3:36 PM
Roger M
There used to be the mafia over here as well. Then the Maori boys and some Tongans got together and decided that matters had gone far enough and so there wouldn't be any more mafia. Now there isn't. The interesting part was that even the mafia (with a huge reputation) couldn't stop a loose group of warriors from taking them to task and putting a stop to their activity.
If a casual group of Polynesians can deal with it, what's your problem? Perhaps you should hire someone to do it for you.
Sione
PS I understand the local Korean merchants took out the Lebanese stand-over gangs in Sydney recently. It isn't that big a deal and once it's done, it's done. Problem solved.
Published: September 14, 2006 4:45 PM
Your response to the protection racket shows that under anarchy, the businessman would be better off just paying the mafia off. Is that the kind of society we really want?
It's the kind of society we have. If your worst fear is that anarchy would be the same as what you already have, what's the problem? (Except that, as someone else said, when you pay protection money to the mafia, you actually get protection; so your worst fear for anarchy is that it would be better than what you already have!)
Published: September 14, 2006 7:03 PM
Roger, what I know about the mafia is neither here nor there. You assert that my description of your options "shows that under anarchy, the businessman would be better off just paying the mafia off?" Which numbered item shows this? Defend your assertions.
"That's one of the perennial problems with anarchy; I have to stand by myself against a well-funded, very large, well-armed, well-organized criminal organization. How much of a chance do you think I have of funding my defense by myself?"
This smacks of deliberate misunderstanding on your part. What makes you think that you couldn't enter into some cooperative venture under anarchy? I hate to keep quoting myself, but I'm amazed that you would assume that you must operate individually, given that I explicitly mentioned the option of pooling your resources with others! Recall where I wrote this?
"If you want to hire a committee, pool your funds with 10,000 of your closest friends and take a vote, do nothing and take your chances, insure against risk, etc., you can do all of that and more. The only constraint is that you can't force anyone else to pay for what they claim not to want."
The ONLY additional option that a state gives you, is that with a state you can force others to subsidize your preferred programs. In exchange you take the risk that someone else will hire the state to take your things to subsidize their preferred programs. Do you honestly see that as a good tradeoff?
Published: September 15, 2006 1:20 AM
Edward Stringham wrote:
""
Although anarchist theory has been developed further in recent years, the idea that markets can function without government was popular in eighteenth-century America as well. Moss argues that eighteenth-century anarchists such as Josiah Warren, Lysander Spooner, and Benjamin Tucker were simply defending the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. ...
""
That should read 19th century or 1800s.
---
Concerning what we would do about terrorism if no government existed: we would be left free to live our lives remarkably absent of terrorism. Terrorism is the health of the state: terrorism is one of the major tools in the esoteric praxis of statecraft used to provide pretexts in order for governments to obtain more funding, power and control, e.g., in order to take over other countries and/or to set up a police state domestically.
As a concrete and exceedingly well-documentend example of this, the U.S. government intentionally provoked and knowingly allowed the Pearl Harbor attack to happen, all the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 approved the Operation Northwoods false-flag terror plan (which thankfully didn't go forward due to John F. Kennedy), it used the phoney Gulf of Tonkin attack to start the U.S. actively fighting in the Vietnam War with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it staged the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, it staged the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and it staged the 9/11 attacks.
Al-CIAda and the CIArabs are the U.S. government's current goose that lays it golden eggs.
This handy pretext-providing covert mechanism is the same reason governments throughout history have staged terror attacks, such as with the Nazis burning the Reichstag parliament building in order to pass the Enabling Act and set up a police state. Or with the 1939 false-flag staged attack against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz so that the German government could have a pretext to invade Poland. Or with the September 1999 Russian apartment building terror-bombing campain staged by the FSB (i.e., the present-day KGB but with a new name) so that the Russian government could have a pretext to invade Chechnya. The list of such staged attacks by governments just goes on and on.
It's simply not in the government's interest to reduce terrorism. It benefits far, far too greatly from it. Indeed, terrorism (in the sense of terrifying people by either threatening them with aggression directly, or by covertly manufacturing contrived situations in which to use as pretexts) is absolutely vital to the existence of government. All governments are founded upon terrorism, and it is only through their practice of terrorism that they can remain extant. Without terrorism, the very existence of government would be quite impossible.
For much, much more on government-staged terrorism, see my below post:
"Documentation on Government-Staged Terrorism," September 30, 2005:
http://www.armleg.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2&mforum=libertyandtruth
For more on the incentive structure of government (i.e., the internal logic of the system) which ensures that the actual practice of governments will be to work to keep the level of terrorism high, see my below article:
"Government Causes the Crime," James Redford, first published at Anti-State.com circa October 2001:
http://www.geocities.com/vonchloride/govcause.html
Published: September 15, 2006 5:55 AM
"When you pay the mafia for protection, at least you get protection." Come on! Do you guys actually believe that nonsense? When have the mafia ever protected a business from other criminals? Never!
It might be possible under anarchism to build a private police force that could tackle the mafia. It would be very expensive. I have doubts that you could get enough people to agree to contribute to the cost. The mafia would try to infiltrate your organization, intimidate citizens into not taking part, assassinating leadership.
Sione mentions a couple of isolated incidents in which the mafia were driven out. But in larger societies, such as Russia, they rule. Speculating is fun, but when I look at reality, I don't see evidence that private police will work. No private police arose in Russia to take on the mafia, and the mafia still dominate the country.
In Arab societies, terrorist organizations operate like the mafia and no private group has stood up to them. Those who can immigrate. In the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas and other groups shoot anyone who disagrees with them. That's how they got elected to office.
Other than Sione's examples, I don't see private groups resisting mafia-like groups. People either cooperate with them, or leave. Those options are cheaper than fighting.
Published: September 15, 2006 8:58 AM
Roger,
"It might be possible under anarchism to build a private police force that could tackle the mafia. It would be very expensive."
Yes. There are things that would be expensive in anarchy. There are also things that would be expensive with a state. So what? At the very least, the state would have to be able to do things more cheaply than private actors for this to be telling against anarchy.
"I have doubts that you could get enough people to agree to contribute to the cost."
Look, you are already telling us that you would agree to contribute to funding programs for dealing with crime, so long as they are state run. Why wouldn't you expect enough other people to be willing to make similar contributions to fund similar programs if they were run by private actors?
How do your doubts entitle you to have a say in how other people's money gets spent?
"The mafia would try to infiltrate your organization, intimidate citizens into not taking part, assassinating leadership."
Unless this problem is unique to anarchy, which you've given no reason to believe, the tendency of the mafia to attempt to undermine programs for dealing with is it is no argument in favor of a state. I hate to be so blunt, but if you want to compare anarchy and state, you have to actually compare them!
You still seem to be deliberately ignoring the fact that there is only one material difference between anarchy and state. State agencies aren't uniquely competent to solve problems, fight crime, operate cheaply or any of that. The ONLY material difference between private actors and states is that a state, by the grace of public opinion, can force people to fund programs which they claim not to want. The state may force others to fund the kinds of programs you want, but it might also force you to fund programs that you don't want. Do you really see this as a good tradeoff?
Published: September 15, 2006 1:10 PM
James, take a deep breath before you hurt yourself! I'm not trying to compare the state and anarchism! There's nothing to compare. The state exists and we can compare one type of state with another, but no anarchist society exists that we can use for a comparison, just the imaginary society in the minds of libertarians.
I like many of the ideas of anarchism and am working to implement them in the US. I disagree with the supposed moral superiority of anarchism, but am trying to work out the practical implications of it. I'm more worried about slowing the progress of socialism than the dangers of a purely anarchist state. Anarchism is a very remote possibility while socialism is a present danger.
Because anarchism is pure imagination, I'm trying to find real world examples of something similar and but the examples I've found so far aren't very encouraging.
Published: September 15, 2006 2:26 PM
"James, take a deep breath before you hurt yourself! I'm not trying to compare the state and anarchism!"
Instead of being flip, you might try responding to my arguments. I notice that you consistently elect to avoid them.
"There's nothing to compare. The state exists and we can compare one type of state with another, but no anarchist society exists that we can use for a comparison, just the imaginary society in the minds of libertarians."
Really? You don't consider that things can be compared even if they do not presently exist? This seems entirely wrong. In any discussion of how things ought to be, there is always some comparision that takes place between mutually exclusive possibilities.
"I'm more worried about slowing the progress of socialism than the dangers of a purely anarchist state. Anarchism is a very remote possibility while socialism is a present danger."
No argument there, but this doesn't say anything about whether a state is an improvement over anarchy.
"Because anarchism is pure imagination, I'm trying to find real world examples of something similar and but the examples I've found so far aren't very encouraging."
Are you of the belief that if something does not already exist, it cannot or should not exist?
Published: September 16, 2006 3:36 PM