Bitcoin Forum

Proof that anarchy can work, and we don't need government laws and guns to keep us in line

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-most-uplifting-facts-about-human-race/?page=full

neat, thanks for sharing

anarchy already *did* work, for example in Spain, though it was not the market/capitalistic kind of anarchy.

only the neighbors didn't like it.

Another question is how can an anarchist society work surrounded by states and how will it be represented in the international community.

Note that this post is crystal-gazing.  :P

I don't believe it will happen this way; if it did, I'd question what the hell happened in that area that made everyone anarchist!  If anarchy is to be, each nation will become increasingly anarchic over time (assuming they have Internet access and favor bitcoin over their local currency) until the various states are too weak to entice their denizens into warring with neighboring nations.  It'll then be a domino effect; once one nation collapses and its once citizens are now ruling themselves, so will another, and another, till a minority are people ruled by states; of course, I do believe some under-developed nations will attempt to go to war for "free land", but anarchism works like one gigantic nation: if you try to pick a fight with one people, the rest will hammer down on you, knowing the danger of going back to rule-by-force.

During this transitioning period, there would be two international communities, with one being those in support of the state, and the other being those who are not.  The thing about anarchists is that they ostracize: they will refuse to acknowledge your existence until you meet whatever standard they've laid out.  So the anarchists would not want to participate in the 1st international community, they'd create their own and do a "with me or against me" sort of thing.

Anyway, if an anarchist society occurred prematurely, it would quickly become a martyr; the only thing states have going for them is their brute force, and so conquering a society of anarchists wouldn't be an issue.  Therefore, there would never be representation of a true anarchist society (perhaps a phony one but not a real one) in any kind of global governance conference, since they'd be annihilated before being invited.

That's a nice analysis. I assumed that eventually a critical mass of people who believe anarchy can work would be reached in a certain country which would then influence people in other countries by showing that society can function without rulers.

Let me whip out my own shiny pair of crystal balls  ;D

Anarchy will happen in one of two ways.

It can happen peacefuly, where anarchists buy or get a piece of land from a country, or set up seasteading ships, and just migrate to the new place. There likely won't be much of a reason to bother or disturb them, since, being uniinhibited by regulations, they may end up having the fastest advancing economy, technology, etc. And they may have enormous wealth and defensive weapons to boot. It would be like countries hating on Google, while all their citizens use it daily. As for how it will be represented in the international community, it will simply be "that place over there. Anarchists don't need representation. If some country wants to enter into deals with anarchists, it would do it on an individual level, such as "this person in particular will provide us with X in exchange for Y."

OR

It can happen violently, where the advent of cryptocurrencies and totally anonymous transactions and business interraction makes collecting taxes and tracking exchanges impossible. Governments will become more violent as they attampt to catch tax dodgers, but will have less and less tax revenues to pay for that violence. Eventually, they will simply collapse from lack of funds. In the mean time, all the austerity measures will make everyone who was depending on governments for medical services, retirement pensions, and wheveter else, will become rather angry at "the system" that has taken their comfortable lives away, and will likely lash out at anyone they percieve to be responsible. This could be wealthy people and businesses, who have money but are not sharing it "fairly" by avoiding taxes, or cryptocurrency and anonymity system developers who are making such a system possible in the first place. In the end, with violence and war simply being too costly, we will end up with regions that don't have government because it would have to be entirely voluntary and without power, and people would just form social and business groups with common interests and goals, but no actual ruling leaders. Whichever states manage to survive will likely only be able to do it through extreme totalitarian powers, such as North Korea or extremely religious violent countries of the Middle East. Some anarchist groups will deal with them, others won't, but there won't be a need for representation, because likely the anarchist group will, again, have way more to offer to those entrenched countries, than they will have to offer to the anarchists.

Find and read The Diamond Age, and maybe Snowcrash, by Neil Stephenson. That's more or less the world that is being build here, right in front of your eyes.

But just think about how many interactions between citizens of different countries are regulated at the state level. What about trade agreements or passports. Also look at this article:
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Luxembourg_leaves_OECD_grey_list.html?cid=7498152
And this one: http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/luxembourg-and-belgium-removed-from-grey-list-/65629.aspx

Companies and citizens living in a functional anarchy would probably be completely isolated by other states and international organizations.

In my first example, probably, but I doubt they would mind much. I wouldn't mind living in a "country" where I am free to do whatever I believe is right, even if it makes me isolated from other countries. Also, don't forget, much of that isolation was in the form of financial sanctions, and those are quickly becoming impossible to enforce. Living in that country, I would still be able to anonymously buy things from hostile countries, or sell things to them, using our decentralized international currency. Heck, I could even sneak past a border and live off Bitcoin and LocalBitcoins cash if I wanted to visit some place.

If my second example, non-anarchist countries will be the exception, since no country would be able to afford to maintain their status quo.

probably a lot like the relationship between westeros and bravos ;D who ever has access to our credit and weapons would dominate other states, who ever doesn't would be dominated. So basically they would all be trying to out do each other at kissing our asses. they would give away more and more and more of their real property inorder to gain our weapons and credit. Eventually they would be their own undoing because eventually they will have sold everything to us and then the whole world will be like us.

*edit* We would never allow one state to dominate. when ever one began to gain the upper-hand we would cut their funding and raise the funding of their opponents. That's just self interest.

But it would be an autarky, nobody could export anywhere and probably not import as well.



You're talking about the "Iron Bank of Braavos" ?  ;D I am hoping that such a society would attract a lot of capital and powerful companies that would then lobby their governments to leave the anarchists alone.  ;D

Ya like the iron bank. No need to lobby the government to leave us alone once they become totally dependent upon our line of credit. The states would be reckless and irresponsible (like usual) and borrow too much to the point where they couldn't afford the interest, then they would default and we would collect the real assets. Eventually we could collect ALL of the real assets and the whole world would be like us.

That's just the lesson being taught by Bitcoin mining (and is the meaning on the quote in my signature)

I don't think that proves anything and besides if anarchy started working in one country the other one would just invade and take over,not a good idea  :-\

Physical goods maybe not, but we are in a service and knowledge economy. We would be able to export software, science, entertainment, and other similar stuff.

Why would it want to invade?

Yes this is the one potentially legitimate criticism of anarchy that I have encountered. Roderick long talks about it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WamkBKNAiPs&t=21m54s

The ultimate conclusion is that this may be an unfortunate part of reality but it is still almost certainly not strong enough of a counterargument to overcome the arguments in favor of anarchy.

Technology empowers people.  Weapons technology empowers people.  Within 5 years it will be possible to construct a small nuclear device for less than 10 btc.  You can't stop the signal. 

Decentralized nuclear power may be fundamentally incompatible with the existence of nation-states.  City-states, however, are likely to vary widely, from fascistic to democratic to communitarian to plutocratic to monarchic.

I hope that is not true.

You can't fight nuclear bombs with nuclear bombs, just doesn't work.

You can, however, fight it with peace.

lolwut? What are you basing this on? Sources etc?

How can you find nuclear bomb with peace? Shouldn't you be angry on you enemy and trying your best to defeat them ?

Anger only motivates them to pull the trigger or press the button.

The question is, do you believe a nuclear bomb IS a nuclear bomb? 

Oh god, not that! >.<

It certainly isn't nothing.

I still want to know where this came from?