Bitcoin Forum

It's pretty late here so I just go to this shortly and bluntly.

How do people envision libertarian or anarchist society working? Compared to current situation. There has to be some advantages that scale allow on wide variety of fields.

Is it some part of American frontier mentality? Having your own land and getting living of such? With small communities.

And if everything is in relatively small scale, how will living standards fare? Would we have such things as top end electronics and highly advanced medicine?

Would the living standards be the same, lower or higher?

I probably will think more later today...

Ever used the Internet?

Like that.

With less laws.

So hugely complex system with millions of parts, at base level run by handful of entities and with some regulation?

Internet isn't entirely simple and much of power controlling it is on limited amount of companies...

More like:
Ever play EVE?

Like that.

But with perma-death.

i imagine that its a lot like the society we have today except you have choice in your government (dont jump on me ancaps i know it wouldn't actually be a government its just dro doesn't mean anything to most people so its easier to explain this way). If you are subscribed to lg government and they piss you off than you stop paying your monthly bill and switch to sprint government. Just like if lg pisses you off today you can unsubscribe from cell phone service and switch to sprint cell phone service.

I expect that the services provided by these competitive free market governments would be better than the services provided by monopolistic government for reasons very similar to why hondas are better than the cars that were produced by the soviet government.

Over all this would lead to a society that was very similar in most ways except it would be less stratified, more wealthy over all, significantly less poverty, higher employment and a legal regime that would focus on prevention rather than cure.

there would still be cops, they would still be a pain in the ass. You would still get speeding tickets. You might even still be searched at the airport. You would still have to pay taxes or something like taxes, you would just get to decide who to pay them to. There would still be prisons and occasionally innocent people would still be forced to go there. Lots of the crappy things that happen now would still happen. But overall things would be better.

You're actually right about this.  You would subscribe to small, local governments; anarchism in this sense is against a national, all-powerful government.  If you don't like one government, you say "Well FUUUUCK YOUUUU" and then join another in your general area.  In a way, governments would be privately owned, like everything else :P  You join them voluntarily, and if you don't like them, you can always form the government of "me".  Just don't expect the governments around you to subscribe to your new law that the world is now your property ;D

I've always described it as ~6 billion governments, each with only one citizen.

You could probably get away with enforcing your own legal system on your own property so long as you didnt piss other people off enough to make it worth their time to spend their money to stop you from doing your own thing. In this sense there would probably be quite a few people who did not subscribe to dro's but they would definitely be the minority as it would involve a lot of extra hassle that wouldnt be worth it to most people.

I considered this possibility, but I'm not sure if people would really stick to their own single-man governments; people tend to want to follow each other's guidelines, for the sake of sameness; for example, city A would have such and such rules (written or unspoken) and city B, directly next to city A, would have similar, if not the same rules.  However, city C, on the other side of the world, might have completely different rules set in place.  But the point would be, in close quarters, people tend to act alike.  However, I don't see why this couldn't happen naturally.

OTOH, if people naturally want to create laws for themselves, this could be a different matter.  Considering throughout most of history, people were ruled, they would continue this heritage of ruling.  So, would children raised in an anarchistic society also believe there should be local rules, or would they believe these rules have no need to be written in stone; instead, they come naturally, or, as commonly referred, be considered "common courtesy".  History doesn't show too many examples of the latter, and plenty of the former, so it's hard to say what will happen.

Or, in my analogy, sign non-aggression treaties, make trade agreements, and join "treaty organizations" (DRO's).

Certainly; the key point is to admit rights by admitting other's rights.  As long as this is upheld, you could subscribe to any form of living you'd like, with others, or without others.

Yup. Reject another's right, clearly you don't value that right, you don't get it either.

I don't think there would be prisons in a free society because it is a really bad system and even if there were you cant really say that people would be forced to go there sense ther would have to had agreed to it beforehand in a contract.

I don't see why cops would still be a pain in the ass, i thinks there will be more like security guards are now.

Certainly no prisons we would recognize as such. There would probably need to be some sort of place to keep people you're not sure are going to stick around for their arbitration. The catch is, you need to get them to agree to go there. So they'd likely be much nicer than modern jails. Hotels with locks on the outside of the doors. Most arbitration contracts would probably have a detention clause for certain crimes.

Yup.

To go Rothbard on you:

We operate in a state of anarchy every day. Any time you're not being supervised or controlled by government, you're operating in a state of anarchy. Anytime you're trading, working, playing, sleeping, or eating in a way which is not being directed by a government official, you're doing so in an anarchic environment; you are embracing spontaneous order and self-governance. You are taking personal responsibility for your actions and their outcomes. That is libertarianism.

When you brush your teeth and take a shower in the morning, that is anarchy. When you make breakfast and kiss your wife or husband goodbye for the day, that is anarchy. When you wash your dishes or clean your house, that is anarchy. When you play video games, that is anarchy. When you drive to the store, that is anarchy. When you dance and sing, that is anarchy. When you go to work, that is anarchy. When you go to sleep at night, that is anarchy. When you dream, that is anarchy. It is never far from us. We are always just seconds away from slipping into anarchy.

Anarchy stops the minute the policeman pulls you over because you were going a little faster than everyone else. When you grit your teeth because you have to send your children off to a public school. When you pay your taxes. When you renew your license. When you get a jury summons in the mail. When you see a doctor to get a prescription. When you walk through the body scanners so you can fly on a plane to visit your relatives. Everything else in between is anarchy.

So you tell me... What would it look like if we laid aside the few vestiges of government that yet remain? What would it look like without all of these unnecessary laws, no taxes, and complete freedom to do business and make personal choices insomuch as you didn't violate common law? What would privately run everything look like?

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Where have all the hardcore statists gone?  Are they still around?

I haven't seen FirstAscent in a while.  They're mostly avoiding this area of the forum, but I know there's plenty out there; probably in the speculation board.

Edit:  Also, I had to do an interpretive painting in art class, about issues around the world.  I decided my issue would be statism.  I had to stand in front of class and explain what my painting was supposed to represent and all that.  Pretty much every one of my classmates was okay with it, and agreed that it was a problem; nobody stood up and said, "But the government is there to help us!"

So maybe the statists are a dying breed.  ???

Other than the (neo-)Nazis, I think most of them have either been converted, or fled in terror.

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Nobody has been able to come up with a convincing model of an anarchist (libertarian socialist) society, it is something that demands social experimentation- like early market capitalism did. The last major experiment was during the Spanish Civil war and it seemed not to be too disastrous then, but the Nazis, Stalinists and Capitalists backed General Franco and overwhelmed the anarchists. I'm not aware that it's been tried on a similar scale since.

So say for example that you rape someone and there is good evidence, surveillance shows that it was rape, and dna shows that it was you. Everyone, including myself would say, that guy is not allowed on my property. Well this creates an entrepreneurial opportunity for people who say, look i know that everyone else in the world said that you were not allowed on their property but ill make you a deal, if you do x y and z for me i will allow you to come onto my property. That persons property would be, loosely speaking, a prison in a free society.

As for why cops would still be a pain in the ass, its because people would still have conflicts of interest. Some people like to drive their cars really really fast, and some people who owned roads would not like people to be driving really really fast on them. This would require enforcement, and from the perspective of the person who likes to drive really really fast, this enforcement would be a pain in the ass.

To be fair, Ken Macleod came up with a pretty convincing model in The Cassini Division, but it ignored Dunbar's number, so I don't know how it got around it. Of course, even he acknowledges that not everyone would be cut out for it, so what's left of London is occupied by "Non-cos" or non-cooperators. It's the third book in the series, and the final one of a trilogy. The fourth one postulates an alternate future, and show how it came about.

It's a good read, and though clearly written from a libertarian socialist perspective, I'd highly recommend the whole series to anyone who wants to know what Anarchy might look like.

But would it look like the prisons you see today? I truly doubt it. Like I said, you'd have to get them to agree to come on to your property.

Or, they could just drive on the roads that let them drive really fast. This is kind of like saying, "For people who like to crap in living rooms, other people not letting them crap in their living rooms is a pain in the ass."

would they look like prisons we see today? Of course this is a lot of guess work but i imagine in some ways yes probably they would have large walls and guard towers. But in other ways they would be VERY different, and VERY much better.

Yes your analogy about carpets and living rooms stands. Yes being pulled over by cops in a free market society would be annoying in a way that is very analogous to the person who is denied pooping rights on my living room carpet. People shouldnt be annoyed by being forced to obey the rules set by the person who built the road (if you dont like it build your own road), but they would be annoyed. and the fact that they would is all that is necessary inorder for me to say with confidence that people would still be annoyed by cops.

I'm not convinced they would have high walls and guard towers. Perhaps for those people someone really wanted vengeance on. And it would be an expensive service, few people could afford it. Most people would be satisfied with restitution, and thus most prisoners would need only a secure enough a cell to make sure they don't wander off.

Only inasmuch as they chose to try and crap on people's carpet, as it were. Most people who wanted to go fast would get on roads which allowed them to go fast. It takes a special kind of stupid to get on the "slow" road and then try to go fast.

Fewer CIA drones. More people doing honest work instead of jobs like: Spy, Banker, judge, politician, jail warden, drug dealer, political asassin asf.

With no political assassins on anybody's payroll, Obama would have to go back to Chikago as a community street worker.

I take offense at drug dealer being in that list. That's a respectable occupation, providing goods to a desiring public. And if you think banks would not exist without government, I'm afraid you're sorely incorrect.

Bankers as we know them (now) then. Like one might discuss Shariah Bankers as an honest profession.

Shariah banking is pretty cool, but I have no problem with traditional banking. Giving the banks control of an entire country's money supply is a stupid idea, though.

I understand, Mr Rothschild might face some difficulties in obtaining a shariah banking trader license, if he was to open a subsidiary right there in Jericho proper. But that is negligible.

Shariah Banking still is worth exploring with or without Mr Rothschild. The modern world has gotta break with SOME traditions, you see?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21732.0

Because if the State isn't there to claim a monopoly on force, we all have a better chance at both self-defense and redress. Don't forget that the State is also a criminal factor itself, so it would stand to reason that those criminals and hangers-on drawn to the State in order to use its power for their own ends would be left at the mercy of their own wits against their peers should the State not be there to back them up.

It's funny that you think a region with completely open borders, no taxes, and no trade tariffs would have less external trade.

If someone without sufficient resources to pursue a case is harmed, he can sell the right to pursue to someone with the resources. Most people, I think, would have enough for a simple insurance-type policy to cover these sorts of things, though.

And when those trade restrictions are created, smuggling will be rampant. Especially since smuggling is not a crime in "Libertaria," so they'd be able to base there safely.

They'd have the same oversight as any other company in the market. The people.