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I expressed my doubts about anarchy in the thread about riots in London.  I thought we might open a new thread about anarchy in general.  I'll start giving my opinion on the subject.

I seriously begin to doubt the concept of anarchy means anything anyway.  To me, anarchy is to politics what nihilism is to philosophy.  It's a paradoxical, contradictory concept.

If we consider anarchy to be the absence of central rules or coercion forces, then we have to admit that there is an inner paradox in such a concept:  how can you prevent rules or coercion, without using coercion or rules?

In a sentence:   "No rules" is still a rule.

Politics is about organisation of power.   But politics doesn't create power ex-nihilo.  Power does exist, because human action exist.  Weapons exist and humans tend to use them when they can.   Anarchist would like to see usage of force disappear from earth, but it is just as utopian as the disappearance of sickness, aging, humger and other bad things in the world.

Politics is about opinions about which usage of force can be accepted, and which usage can not.   And to clarify these, there is a set of rules which can be voted by the people or edicted by an autocrat.  Each individual can have his own set of rules, and if his set of rules is totally different from the rest of the society, this person usually becomes a criminal or any other kind of asocial.

Honnestly, sometimes I think I understand anarchy, and somtimes I'm not sure I understand it at all.  It's kind of disturbing.

So I think I can't declare myself as an anarchist.   And yet, I think there is no real rule about how power should be organised.  Power is not something that should be discussed, it's something that should be taken.  It belongs to whoever is capable of taking it.

There is nothing Utopian about ending sickness, aging, hungers, and bad things in the world. No, it is you who are confused.

It is only by our irrationality and lack of knowledge that prevent us from preventing sickness, aging, hungers, and bad things in the world.

Think about it:

1. Aging is a biological process. That mean we can apply human reasoning to find out how to reverse and stop aging.

2. Hunger is a problem in the world because either:
 
  Our population is too large or that we have biological urges to breed too much. (not a problem)

  We are too inefficient about converting energy into fun. (problems with cows, mostly)

  Distribution of food are inequal (caused by more fundamental problems)

3. Sickness is a big problem space. There are many things we don't understand, but it doesn't mean we can't fix them. Sickness include aging, heart problems, diseases, etc.

They seem to be intractable problems right now, but in reality it simply means that we lack knowledge on how to solve them. Don't confuse extremely hard problem with utopian dreams.

Yeah my examples of utopias were not very good.  I lack imagination about those stuffs.

Anyway that was only part of my point.  Power does exist and therefore I have difficulty to imagine a society without it.

Truly, in the world there will always be at least one person who will be willing to take the power.  If nobody does, I will.

PS.  I hate hippies and in a hippie world I assure you I would build some guns and enslave them all.   :)

Anarchy couldn't work if all governments were to end now. Another government would certainly emerge. However, I think anarcho-capitalism is possible in any community where a large percentage of people (maybe 25%) understand the ideas behind anarcho-capitalism and the majority of other people are not totally hostile to the idea.

If all governments ended now, but 25% of people understood anarcho-capitalism, protection agencies would quickly spring up to defend the anarcho-capitalists against those trying to build a new government (as well as other criminals). Most other people will be seeking security. When they see that a government will not help them, they will also hire one of the existing protection agencies. At this point, governments will have a very hard time taking control again.

Anarcho-socialism would need a much higher percentage of supporters in a post-government situation. If they had the same 25%, I don't think they would be able to provide security for the rest. Furthermore, a large number of the moderates will refuse to give up their property. In anarcho-capitalism, the moderates don't have to give up anything; they voluntarily hire a protection agency.

I prefer to think of it as everyone having power, and personal cryptography is just one tool that helps in that area.

Very true.  But I suspect most anarchists (well at least the left-anarchists) don't like this idea, neither do they like cryptography or money in general.

So what do they like?

Might be a big cliché, but I think they want everyone to live in harmony and non-violence.  Meaning that nobody possesses anything, everybody works for everyone and you have to share whatever you produce.

Remember, these anarchists are the kind of people who dislike the idea of division of labor, of profit, and other concepts.

I'd like to point out that there is a huge difference between Anarcho Capitalism and Anarcho-Communism/Socialism.

Each have a very different idea of what the state is and what property is.

All of the questions and doubts raised on this forum are very basic. There's plenty of ideas out there.

If you want an idea of what Anarcho Capitalists are talking about. I suggest having a look at freedomainradio.com (there'll be a podcast talking about your doubt there for sure)

If you're interested in finding out about Anarcho-Communism/Socialism, look at anarchistfaq.org

I'd suggest having a look at both to see how different they are.

But there are limited resources, people like cars, computers, hookers.  If you have to share everything what dose one have?  Nothing?
If you are the only one with water, do you have to share it with everyone so everyone dehydrates?

In a 'nobody owning anything' society, there is no impulse for anyone to save up for the bad times.  As everyone else will attack you for 'hoarding.'

To me any non-capitalistic society will be short-lived.  Particularly one that runs on anarchy.

Economically it is unsustainable, morally it is evil.

+1

It is interesting to note that in an anarcho-capitalist society you could construct an anarcho-socialist community, but not the other way around.

I keep reading that here, but without any explanation why it's the case.

During the Social Revolution in Spain (an Anarcho-Syndicalist revolution that was ultimately crushed by the Spanish Communist Party and the Soviet Union) small-scale capitalism existed. Small farms weren't collectivized, and although the larger land-owners had their lands seized it was by state dictat (the Spanish state being largely non-anarchist, as most anarchists refused to join the government). Even amongst the anarcho-syndicalist collectives there was an element of capitalism, with trade between collectives occurring.

I can't see anything inherent in the rejection of rulers that would lead to capitalism becoming "forbidden". It may become increasingly difficult for capitalists to compete with collectives, but construction of a capitalist society within a wider anarchist society shouldn't be impossible.

You mean besides the fact that Anarcho-Socialism is a contradiction in terms?

FTFY.

Anarcho-capitalism isn't a contradiction in terms, because capitalism isn't (in it's original meaning) a political ideology.  What most people think of as capitalism in our modern age is actually corporatism/merchantilism in new clothes.  It's not new either.  I said that anarcho-socialism was a contradiction in terms, not because I consider any variation of anarchism viable, but because anarchism and socialism are two political ideologies that are diametricly opposed to one another.  Anarchism is the absence of government external to the individual, while socialism is a social & political structure explicitly designed to impose a form (i.e. governance) upon society at large.  No matter how one feels about either ideology, no rational person can consider the fundamentals of the both of them, and conclude that they can coexist.

I'll say it again -  "Capitalism and Socialism are Statist paradigms"
Anarchy is simply Voluntary interaction.

Anarcho-Socialism is double-think ... creighto snuck up while I was posting and gave a better explanation

Freedom defined is freedom denied.

Protection? Voluntary? Something about an offer...


This is absolutely untrue. Capitalists do not respect one's right to own the product of his labor and they believe that they can own land. They will destroy the anarchists to protect their profits. This protocol has precedent before and during the Spanish Civil War.

Has there ever been an anarcho-capitalist society? What happened to it?

Medieval Iceland was a good functioning example.

The American Old West was another good example, due to how far removed from the central government they were.

And Somalia is currently effectively an anarcho-capitalist society.

I'm writing a big paper on this, so stay tuned, I'll be posting it here soon.

I've reached the point where I try to reject political concepts.  All I can do as a human is to act.  Therefore, acting is what is important.  And how do I act?  By promoting bitcoin, when possible...  Does this make me an "anarchist".  I guess so...

lol, hardly.

Ah, Human Action.  That self-evident axiom upon which a whole theory of economic thought is based. 

But I agree with you that rejecting politics is about the only option at this point.  Reminds me of an article I read by Frank Chodorov:

http://mises.org/daily/5027/On-Doing-Something-About-It

Perhaps your paper will deal with this, but didn't both Iceland and the Old West fail to protect themselves against centralization of power?

Unfortunately.  However, two examples don't make a universal rule.  Additionally, those societies were not anarcho-capitalist societes, but rather Murrary Rothbard provided them as examples of historical societies that had some *elements* of anarcho-capitalism.  It does good to study these historical examples so we can learn from them to know better why they failed.  Primarily what was lacking was a commonly understood and accepted philosophical opposition to the initiation of violence and failure to build enough decentralized voluntarily-funded defense agencies strong enough to, collaboratively, resist statist aggression.  Oh yeah, and they didn't have bitcoin back then to protect individuals against (most) taxes :).  So while I do not necessarily agree with the maxim "might makes right", I do acknowledge that it is important to defend what you believe is important.

The biggest problem I have here is I can't see how you'd transition to a voluntarist system and keep coercion out of it for any significant amount of time. People have different resources at their disposal. Some individuals have vast resources, to the point that it would be difficult for any group of individuals I can see agreeing with each other to defend themselves against them. So what I think would happen if you removed the current coercive state apparatus is that another would simply spring up in its place, in the form of private armies or something analogous.

Voluntarism is fine if everyone has more or less equal capabilities, but even if the playing field was even to begin with, wealth would eventually accumulate in the hands of a minority, giving them the opportunity to use coercive force against others once they had enough resources.

edit.

Oh, for Pete's sake!

Capitalism isn't a political ideology!  It's an economic model!  Capitalism is indifferent to the ideologies!

Ditto, What ^-He-^ says.

Capitalism is a foundation for all economic models irrespective of political models. Any model that does not incorporate a supply/demand as its foundation, fails and falls.

Liberalism, Socialists, etc... only exist on the backs of Capitalists no matter what country one comes from.

Name any country, I can show Capitalism at work.

I couldn't of said it any better.

Power is not something that is decided on philosophical considerations.   It is not a social contract.  It is an empiric reality.

It's nowhere close to a reality. It's a subjective anomaly. Anything affecting another sentient organism could be considered an act of power. Its true meaning is subjectively defined.

Hating capitalism is like hating profit and loss, wages, opportunity costs and the law of economic.

Power is elusive and complex based on many factors, Government Model (democracy, dictatorship, blood line, etc...) but all model boil down to public acceptance.  One might have power one day, and be an outcast the next. (i.e. Egypt, Libya, Yemen, etc...)

The one who controls "the Mob" has power. But it never lasts because "the Mob" changes quicker than those with Power.

Cardinal Richelieu probably had the best model for retention of Power. (most don't even know who he was).

But even he, in the end, succumb to the change of Power.

Capitalism as an economic model cannot function without a government of some kind.

Yes it can.

Huh... It has. The neanderthal guy who made the stone wheel for 10 spears, wasn't aware of the "Capitalist Pig" government, but amazingly used a capitalist supply/demand to initiate a trade.

Of course, if every individual never traded anything and was completely self sufficient, yea, your statement would be correct. But I am not holding my breath for that day.

A simple exchange between two parties of things of equal value isn't capitalism. Both parties gain as much as they lose and therefore do not experience profit.

However, if party B takes the product of A's labor without giving back something of equal value, we have capitalism in the exchange and a state in the reason behind B's privilege. Perhaps it's B's perceived strength or holiness. Perhaps B has the backing of a more powerful authority. Without such a reason, there is no state and A won't consent to such a deal.

The problem with your thinking is that things can have some sort of intrinsic "value".  All value is imputed by individuals and changes not only from individual to individual, but also in time.  Nothing has inherent value.  If you disagree please explain how something has intrinsic value, and where that value comes from.

So a voluntary exchange between two parties never involves things of equal value.  If A didn't value what B has more than what he has to offer there would be no exchange (assuming no coercion).  For a willing exchange between two parties both members have to value more what they are getting than what they are giving. 

With your example of B taking the product of A's labor there are only two cases.

1) A agrees to the trade with B
2) A does not agree and is coerced by B

1) is capitalism.
2) is theft.

Thoughts?

Are they of equal value, the exchange had a built in profit. "The Margin". What does the Wheel Maker do with 10 Spears? He is only one guy.

He doesn't need 10, he is saving his profit for later. (His profit margin).

Under your argument he would only exchange what he needs.

You really need to stop and think about what you mean to say, before you type.  Capitalism is simply a concept that pulls together several economic laws under one word.  Laws in the "natural" and "God created them" kind.  The first being, the individual has a right to the fruits of his labor. (i.e. the capital) and he also has a right to trade it freely without coercion.  The value of the two items being traded don't have a set value, the value of each thing is subjective to the perspectives of he who trades.  The law of supply and demand also comes into play; as these two could be trading things on the (original) Silk Road, one trading silk from China and the other trading whatever it is that Europe made that Chinese people wanted.  Each item is moving from a region that has more of it, and therefore it's market value is lower, to a  region where there is less of it, and therefore it's market value is higher.  That's called 'arbitridge'. Another law that you don't know is comparative advantage.  Go google "the island trading game".

What you think is capitalism, is corporatism, and a far cry from capitalism.  A free market, by definition, is capitalist in nature; but that does not mean that capitalism only exists in a free market.  As has been noted by another, capitalism exists always and everywhere, it's just illegal under certain political conditions.

I don't think capitalism is a system, either. It's simply what tends to happen when people are left to behave in a certain way. I don't think discussing capitalism here is very fruitful. Using that moniker makes it seem like people are talking about the same thing, but looking at the discussion above, I don't think that's the case.

Anyway, this was a thread about anarchy, wasn't it? I'm sorry if my careless choice of words ("anarcho-capitalism") diverted the discussion. I still haven't received anything even resembling an explanation of how a free, individualistic society would manage to stay that way...

It will stay that way, when there is only one person left.

Otherwise, we will group together in groups based on many varying factors. (Beliefs seemingly the most prevalent, nationality, race, etc...) It is the natural way. 

I think you're over-complicating things. To draw an analogy. The strict technical meaning of the word atheist literally means someone that lacks a belief in God. However, this strict definition would also include babies, the mentally ill, etc. In practice, an atheist isn't just someone that lacks belief. It's someone that has considered the evidence and found it lacking. In otherwords, they actively disbelieve (note: I'm not claiming atheists are certain or that they are making a knowledge claim, they are just being skeptical) Likewise, just as the strict definition of an anarchist is someone that doesn't approve of rulers, in practice there is something more to it than that. There is a rationalization for WHY rulers are illigetimate.

So far, Stephan Kinsella has put it best for me:


The reason why you can't justify aggression is because by entering into a rational argument you are already presupposing that violence isn't the better way to settle that particular disagreement. Otherwise, why are you bothering with discussion instead of putting a bullet in my head? Aggression ends discussion rather than being an outcome of it.

The rest of anarcho-capitalism and Libertarianism can be condensed into the single idea of the assignment of property rights. Namely, the first person to make a claim on X has the better claim on X because everyone else is a latecomer. This, of course, includes my own body. If some latecomer comes along and says that they have a better claim to my property then what's to stop yet another latecomer from coming along and making the same argument against them? Therefore, anyone that advocates property rights, to be consistent, has to recognize the prior-later distinction. Since the first person to claim X owns X, they can also contractually transfer ownership to another party. So the only two legitimate ways of owning property are homesteading and free trade.

Of course, anarchism is not a Utopian ideal. There will always be people that wish to use aggression to accomplish their goals. The point of anarchism is to make these people diffuse their power across everyone instead of concentrating it into the hands a single asshole, or a group of them. In fact, the real Utopians are the ones that think they can use aggression to accomplish their goals without it leading to corruption and abuse. Also, just because we have a system of property rights doesn't mean we expect everyone will follow them. I have no doubt that there will always be thieves but that's an issue to be dealt with technologically, better theft prevention, etc. Anarchism makes sense exactly BECAUSE Utopian ideals are nothing but fantasy.

Aggression is part of our natural system of life, why do so many think they can "think" it away?

Inter-species aggression is higher then intra-species aggression (especially if you eat meat, but even not you kill the plant to eat it). Aggression within the species follows a logical flow, we try to avoid it (because it is safer), but when we think it is the only way to get a point across or to acquire something, we will dive into aggression like any other species.

You can't wish away aggression, you can't make it go away through laws; it is a natural law of nature. One day when any resource you want can be given to you at little or no cost, we "might" evolve out of aggression.

BTW: Freedom of Speech in the U.S. gave you the right to voice your opinion "through aggression".  We will also keep that right, "with aggression".
Many in China are using "aggression" to acquire that right; As China is using "aggression" to keep it from them.

Initiation of aggression?

You obviously didn't bother to read my entire post since I anticipated such an objection and have already refuted it before you even posted it.


Clearly, I don't believe we can "think" away aggression since I just admitted as much and explained why that's not a problem for anarchism.

Aggression is the initiation of force. To say "the initiation of aggression" is to say something redundant. If you are the aggressor and I respond with violence, that's self-defense, not aggression on my part.

So you must forever maintain the ability to counteract aggression with the ability to be aggressive yourself.  It must also be presumed that your defense must be of an equal or greater ability than any possible aggressor otherwise your position would fall.

This sounds very familiar to me for some reason. Oh, yea, the arms race that our human history has maintained since someone through the first rock, spear, arrow, bullet, missile, etc...

And yet we seem to still have wars, or recently as in Libya, a Non-War according to the President.

You are confusing violence with aggression. I'm against aggression, not violence. Aggression is the initiation of violence. I'm against the initiation of violence. I see nothing wrong with responding to aggression with violence.

In other words, "he started it!"

I'm a spelling/grammar nazi and a keen student of linguistics in general... Where do I send you a tip for this enlightenment?

There are three cases:

1) A agrees freely to trade with B.
2) A agrees but not freely to trade with B.
3) A does not agree and B takes A's product anyway.

The first case is a cooperative exchange. If A has some weakness that might compel him to accept an unfair deal (lack of access to a market, an addiction, hunger, sickness, a lack of access to the means of production, blackmail etc.) and B takes advantage of that weakness, we have capitalism, and subtle theft, in the second case. The third case represents straight-up theft, but it is also capitalism because B took advantage of A's weakness in his inability to prevent the theft.

If the ten spears covers the cost of building a wheel and its bill of materials, neither caveman takes a profit. If the wheel was actually worth five spears, the wheel maker would have taken a five spear profit from the buyer.

Okay, Mom.

As I've stated before, I get suspicious when people try to justify something with natural law or God. Lost Cause apologists do the same thing.

I agree that individuals have the right to the products of their labor and that they have the right to trade without coercion. However, an exchange between an employer and his employee is inherently coercive because the employer is in charge of his employee. I agree, for the most part anyway, that we can only subjectively value the products of our labor. I happen to agree that markets are useful for determining value, but acknowledge that there are other useful ways, but the producer of a given product deserves the entirety of that value. For doing no work, a middleman deserves nothing. Now, when a merchant transports products to foreign markets by his own labor, he deserves compensation for that expense. But he has no right to take advantage of the products' builders for their lack of access to foreign markets.

No, I'm not. Capitalism consists of authoritarian relationships. Whether these relationships involve two people or a multitude, it's capitalism.

Capitalism is a choice (although some might find themselves coerced into behaving capitalistically). You have to choose to take advantage of others.

Capitalists depend on domination to profit. As such, states will exist in any capitalist society.

omg

So your system would check every transaction between people making sure that there was no "unfairness"?  Life is unfair.  If A agrees, however reluctantly, he does so because he thinks the transaction will make him better off.  Even if it is not the ideal exchange he could hope for.  And while I agree people should try to present "fair" trades to the best of their abilities, what system would you support that would ensure that all such trades are "fair"? 

There really are only two cases.  Either A is coerced, or he agrees (reluctantly or enthusiastically) because he will be better off than not making the trade.  Even if it is a really shitty trade.

Now I agree that people shouldn't try to take advantage of others who are a bad position, but that's more in the realm of ethics.

Traditional anarchism, that is a complete lack of hierarchy cannot exist because humans are not created equal as far as abilities go.  Some will naturally gain "dominance" over others.  Some people want leaders.  I just don't understand why you would think that somehow we can do away with all authority and hierarchy in human society.  Would you do away with families since parents are hierarchically above children? 

edit.

Which is what both parts always say in a conflict.

No. It's not necessary about humans being are better than other so they get leadership.

Rather, it is a communication problem. For example, it doesn't make sense to have a flat hierarchy in a large organization such as google because the information that flow from the development team to the decision maker would be overwhelming. That is why they employ managers.

Depending on how the hierarchy is organized, an organization could be really slow or really fast acting. Their speed in being able to run through a OODA loop will determine if they will live to see another day in marketplace or win the war.

This is not necessary about dominance and who's better or who's not! That's true for a few types of hierarchical organization, but not all!

The Bitcoin community is an example of an efficient organization organized through multiple type of hierarchical structures. The entrepreneurs organize the enterprises and business needed to succeed. The developers make improvements to the bitcoin client. The moderators clean up the forum of spams and abusive users. The forum acts as a medium of communication, coordinating economic, development, and marketing effort. A lot of those structures are parallel allowing the Bitcoin project to execute at multiple fronts.

I would say that they are delusional. I acknowledge that there is a distorting influence on the labor market caused by the state. That does not equate to "using violence to force people to work".

It makes about as much sense as saying "group X is doing something to group Y that I don't like, but group Y doesn't seem to care about. this gives me justification to use physical violence against group X".

I kind of see your argument. Sort of like people without acceptable means to repay are charged higher interest which further degrades their ability to repay. Logic would dictate to charge them less interest and more favorable loans to enhance their ability to repay.

However, it is not the "sharks" asking for the money. If the fish don't accept the conditions the "sharks" will not eat.

As far as Black Mail, take the blame for what you did wrong and there will be no Black Mail.

Sickness, Forced Labor (sweet shops), etc... I do believe that this is covered under the law. But granted, people will let themselves be subjected in order to survive.  In America (if your a legal citizen), I don't know why you would though. You can force an employer to pay minimum wage, even the people that are not getting minimum wage would be "off the books" and tax free and would counteract the lower pay.

But if all you are saying is people take advantage of people, Ahh... Yea, of course they do.  And probably always will.  Its the Nature of things, the scorpion said to the fox.

The unemployment rate for teenager is pretty damn high. Today it's 14 to 15 percents. Back in 2000, this rate was 33%. The minimum wage may not be the primary cause of job losses, but it doesn't help.

Remember, children and teenagers will work for peanuts. The adults will raise the specter of exploitation in order to cut the competition out.

When you have old people like FatherMcGruder saying that people should deserve fair wages, they have an interest in destroying their competitors' ability to find jobs.

The law of economics dictates what can or cannot happen. What do you suppose when we don't pay heed to economic laws? Well, we either die or become poorer.

To play devil's advocate: What about when competition drives wages below the point needed to actually pay for living expenses?

Then people may shares apartments or reduce consumption to reduce cost.

However, don't forget that cheaper labor force have effects on everything else. It may leads to cheaper goods.

This is all very philosophical. You speak of what is justified, of rights, of how things ought best be done. None of this has anything to do with the practical running of the state - and if you're talking about rights,  you are talking about setting up a state. Rights are something only subjects of states have. They are not something you are born with, they are something you are granted as a subject, after your status as a subject is confirmed. Free people have only abilities. But I digress.

You say the idea is to make people diffuse their power. How? That's the crux of my doubt right there.

It may also lead to starvation. There is a strong precedent for workers being abused en masse by powerful industry magnates. And if you're going to  say that was because they had the state behind them, you'll have to answer my question about how you prevent such powerful individuals from effectively forming their own states and making the less powerful their subjects.

Deflation occur's

Prices will overtime (6-12 months) get cheaper. People seem to have forgot basic concepts. It isn't the amount of money you earn, it is its purchasing power. You can give everybody $50/hr but products would adjust to meet the new purchasing power. This also works in reverse, if you cut everyones wages in half, the price of products would come down to the new wages.

The wool that has been pulled over peoples eyes is the worth of money. To buy the same thing a $1 would buy in 1950 today costs $23.50. To find the true inflation, compare the hourly wage in 1950 (on average was 0.75¢/hr) to 2011 ( abt $17 ).

So we end up with two ratios;   $1 : $23.50   and   0.75¢ : $17  Combine them for a percentage of purchasing power between years to see if we are better or worse.

We end up with a purchasing powers as 1950 = 1.33   and   2011 = 1.38  so the true difference in purchasing power is .05 worse off. Higher is worse, lower is better.

This does not reflect the costs of products but the purchasing power to buy them. So all those pay raises didn't really mean much at all.

Wouldn't this still lead to a strongly stratified society, where the majority are able to purchase the bare necessities, but have limited to no access to luxury assets such as education, further solidifying the class divide?

Education as a luxury. Hmm... No, education would become what it was before, just without the high wages for teachers. Public schools would still be buy property taxes. But a strong community could teach to the 12th grade relatively free of charge. College would return to an elite status, but personally I think most degrees are over-rated in their value. As a lot of recent graduates are finding out. But even college level education does not need to cost what it does. Remember they are only selling information, and then testing you on your retention of that information. I think that can be done somewhat cheaply. Of course there are some fields, Doctor (of Medicine) that might justify the cost.

BTW: Recent statistics show Homeschooling the fastest rising education method with the best results. They are using combined Homeschooling resources to share information and teaching techniques. I know of one community homeschool that is better equipped than a private school.

It depends on if you believe that entrepreneurs' wealth come from serving the lower class or not. If you believe the entrepeneurs' wealth come from serving the richer class only, then there is no chance for the lower class to rise.

Obviously I believe wealth does come from serving the lower classes. More importantly, I believe is that there two categories: The have-now, and the have-later. I believe the expansion in productivity will accrues to the lower class and diminish the relative power of the rich.

Consider the smartphone, for example. Before the decade's end, these will be available to the developing worlds. Now, everybody have lot of computational power they can take advantage of, and a global market they can enter.

Education cost will be lowered dramatically through entrepreneurial and charity effort.

Think of Khanacademy. It's not just a charity, but a hyper-efficient operation. The video lectures and the program for mastering these concepts can literally scale up to billions of people in the world provided that they throw enough brains and servers at it. Plus they utilize statistics to analyze the educational effort in depth to show where they can improve.

Today's public school system waste horrendous amount of money for their economic output. It doesn't have to be like that.

Yeah, and if they don't have bread they can just eat cake.

Good points about education. I also believe that education could be done a lot more effectively for a much lower cost.  I was homeschooled and am doing just fine in "the real world".  Most people are surprised when I tell them I was homeschooled because I don't have the social awkwardness they expect from homeschoolers. 

Any type of private education is better than the political machine known as public education. Would you rather have over a decade's of your child's life in your control or up to the whim's and desires of a flawed inefficient democracy?

"She didn't care to think about the peasants much less insult them."

How about they eat the rich  ;)

What's a rich person?

They taste sweet but not excessively sweet  ;D

My sarcasm detector is broken so I might be missing the joke but just in case you're serious, I've added my bitcoin address to my signature.  8)


I've had this question asked a few times and I always find it an extremely uncomfortable topic. First of all, I think that all self-defense should be carried out by persons against other persons. I also think that self-defense should be limited to imminent threats. Therefore, attacking the state fails on both counts since you aren't defending yourself from any particular person and also you aren't under an imminent threat. However, if you were to refuse to pay your taxes and refuse to be evicted from your home then, even though you would likely most either be killed or captured, you would be justified in resisting.


Capitalists don't force people to work. Nature takes care of that.

If you were the only person on the planet, you would have to either farm, hunt, fish or forage. You would have to either work or starve. Simply adding a few billion people to the equation doesn't change anything. They don't owe you a living. You still must either work or starve. If I offer you a job then I'm just adding to your opportunities. I'm not forcing you to work. You have to do that anyways.

Not necessarilly, there are many species of plants that give animals nectar and fruits in exchange for non-destructive assitasnce in reproduction; the animal still gets fed, but the plant not only not get killed but actually gets helped with creating new life.

No sarcasm. Tip sent.

Ahh,... so Aggression is a Natural process.  ;D

If you look at how slavery ended in Europe, it was done peacefully. As more and more people saw that slavery was immoral, eventually there was critical mass to make the change. I see anarchism happening over generations as old ideologies die out and Libertarianism becomes more and more popular. Once we have enough people, we withdraw our consent from the state and defend ourselves against any aggression, which hopefully won't come, just as with abolition in Europe.

Also, don't make the mistake of saying "anarchism is a great idea but it won't work" since imagine hearing something like "freeing the slaves is a good idea but it won't work". Even if that were true, it doesn't matter, slavery is immoral and we don't acquiesce just because it's impractical.


Thank you very much, kind sir!

Wait, how what i said leads to that conclusion? 0.o

Aren't you saying: through the destruction of life, comes not only more life, but the destruction of life is part of the process for its continuation.

Eating the fruit is destructive but part of reproduction. Take it further, animals eat the whole fruit tree, Apples, wood, etc... The process not only makes room for others, but also makes room for its progeny when the seeds take root.

The only difference is time. How long should it survive and be protected?

But I do see your argument, the fruit tree is using the work of others to help in its species survival without being destroyed itself immediately.

Kind of makes me want to sue the fruit trees for taking advantage of the masses.

But I like the Natural Contract Law, I will give you something and you will give me something in return. If you choose to use my product no matter what you do with it, helps the Fruit tree.

It is offering nourishment, and weather you eat it, give it away, or through it to the ground, the Fruit Trees contract is fulfilled. The competition between fruit trees is to provide the most beneficial fruit for others.

I wish these copyright groups and artist thought that way.

I.E. Take for example a brand new no name band, and give them the chance to sing and perform at the Super Bowl Half Time Show but they will not be able to retain any rights to their performance or music. It will become immediately public domain material.

Would the they say; NO ?   I doubt it. They would fight and even pay for the privilege of doing it. I would even bet some famous people would do it under those conditions.

Anyways;

I stand by the case; Aggression is a Natural Process, it is not a constant process but a process.

Just out of curiosity: any ideas on how to avoid the security dilemma, alluded to earlier by another poster?
I think most people would argue that without an enforcer of last resort (i.e., the State, or a Leviathan, if you will)
we would be forced to act as relative-gains maximizers even in otherwise benign interactions.
Taking into account that relative gains accumulate over time, this seems a most pressing concern.

Can such a society scale?

Also, what do you think of the "iron law of oligarchy" (basically, organization = oligarchy)?

I don't know what you mean by relative-gains maximizers, nor why people would be forced to act as "relative-gains maximizers", nor do I know why relative-gains maximizing is necessarily a bad thing.  But now that you bring it up, Roderick Long has some things to say about the last resort objection in "Libertarian Anarchism: Responses to Ten Objections" (http://www.lewrockwell.com/long/long11.html):

I think that he was talking about my post concerning a collective defense of a true anarchist society.  The problem being that those people or groups with the greatest resources to contribute to the collective defense against a foreign threat also are the most mobile among society, and as such, their own greatest-self-interests are unlikely to lie with the collective defenses, but rather with flight and re-establishment elsewhere.  Leaving the anarchist society gutted of capacity (relative to it's prior state) and only the lower classes to it's defense, and only because they were those who did not have the capacity to vacate before the invading hordes.  Think Katrina with an invading army.

Broken down isn't this: Fight or Flight

No i was pointing out that there are many cases where one species can get nurishment from another without neither being harmed, much to the contrary; the fruit tree offers the hanging fruit and the oozing nectar, and the animals in exchange help the plant with it's reproductive cycle, and no one gets hurt, much less killed. No "initiation of violence", the animal eats somthing tasty and the tree get its rocks off.

(All this talk is starting to gimme images of getting head from a hummingbird...)

Hmm... sounds good. Wifey, oh... wifey, come hither.

Oh, I see your argument. It is valid, until there is one fruit left and 5 animals.

Or one "head" and 5 hummingbirds, oh.. wow. what a visual. Ok, you win.

I've been pondering things like this for a while. Like the fact that most seeds are coated with a substance that passes through the digestive system. And in exchange for planting the seeds, the tree provides the flesh of the fruit. Some seeds are poisonous beneath the coating, like apple seeds (though they're unlikely to hurt humans) which are like a warning not to take the whole thing .. not to take the piss.

It's like life is in the process of negotiating terms for mutual survival .. Hmm .. Haven't totally thought this through yet, it's in my abstract musings phase.

It's just a fancy way of saying that someone calculates their own gain in terms of what someone else
gained.
So if you got 10 BTC and I got 20, you will think of this as a relative loss even though you gained a profit in absolute terms.
If you were a profit maximizer, you would not care what I got, and co-operation would be much easier
to accomplish.

Without an enforcer of last resort and a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, your security
will depend on your own ability to use force relative to others.
A dilemma then occurs, because every time you increase your own security you also decrease
someone else's (and vice versa). This is the essence of the arms race.
An equilibrium is possible, but it will likely be highly unstable.

Since relative gains can be converted into means of coercion, you would be forced to act as a relative-gains
maximizer in such a situation. You would always have to worry, not about what you get but how much you
get relative to your competitors. Those who did not do this would live and die at the mercy of stronger agents.

This is a line of reasoning you will find in most literature on international relations, but it is not entirely uncontroversial. See Google scholar or your local library for more on this, if you are interested.

Hm, I don't think I buy this. I don't think the objection is so much that disputes must be settled at all times, but rather that they be handled in a civilized manner (i.e., without arbitrary, brute force).

Without the courts and without a state to enforce the rulings of the courts, it might be argued that any and all disputes can escalate to violent conflict and are more likely to do so.
The reason for that, as I have mentioned, is that in a self-help system any relative loss can threaten
your security, or at least undermine your autonomy in the longer term.
With an effective state this is not necessarily the case.

Huh?  Really?  Don't most profit maximizers simply want to make profit?  The only case where I suppose what you say is valid is where there are high barriers to entry, in which case a loss to a competitor would grant you a greater share of the pie, thus bringing you close to monopoly power.  But in the case of competition with free market entry, as is the case of distributed peer-to-peer legal systems with mutually-agreed-upon 3rd party arbitration, than any effort and resources spent on damaging an opponent would make you worse off overall since other agencies that don't engage in warfare would get an advantage.


Wait, but with the current state system, don't most conflicts end up with someone pointing a gun and locking someone in a cage?  But this is not the case with mutually-agreed upon 3rd party arbitration (which is what the agorist/market-anarchists advocate) where rulings are focused on restitution (not punishment) and enforced through ostracism.

Yes. And if you simply want to make profit, it doesn't matter what anyone else is making as long as you
get your profit. This extends to any agent that is simply content with gaining in absolute terms.

However, the argument is that if you have to worry about your survival, you must also worry about relative gains.
Worrying about relative gains makes it difficult to co-operate, because it transforms the expected utility
of the co-operative outcome. If both parties are maximizing relative gains you have a zero sum game, in which you either win or lose: co-operation is pointless and possibly dangerous.
Note that I'm not saying all interactions will be of this sort, just that they will be more prominent.

Absolutely.

I agree.

The argument put forth by Hobbes and others, however, is that under anarchy your primary goal is to
survive, and you can't afford to be nice (this is a gross simplification). That is, the system forces you to behave in a certain way.
To refute this is to refute the security dilemma. I'm not saying that is not possible, but it is a concept that
has stood the test of time.

Further, an anarchical system is not like a free market at all. A free market requires the possibility of making binding agreements and having ensured property rights.
It's not impossible to make self-enforcing agreements (like using an escrow for financial transactions), given certain conditions, but it is more difficult in general.

I wouldn't agree that most conflicts end up that way, but maybe our experiences differ on this point.
You're right that a lot of them do, though.

My concern is whether the proposed anarchist solution scales or not, and whether it really can extend beyond simple transactions. I think some interests are more vital than others, and whenever those vital interests come into play you can no longer rely on voluntary compliance or good will.

Anyway,  I don't really have much more to say on this issue, but I got some of the answers I was looking for.
Can you recommend further reading on anarchist social institutions? Thanks.

Tons of stuff, I don't have time to list all, but great free pdf books on market-anarchy here:

http://freedomainradio.com/ (http://freedomainradio.com/) (maybe "Practical Anarchy" is a good place to start, he also has a great youtube channel "stefbot")
http://mises.org/ (http://mises.org/) (most stuff by Rothbard is good)
http://agorism.info/ (http://agorism.info/) (Agorists advocate building up the untaxed counter-economy)
http://c4ss.org/ (http://c4ss.org/) (Center for a Stateless Society: building awareness of the market anarchist alternative)

http://infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ (http://infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ)

I've always liked this, The Private Production of Defense (https://mises.org/journals/jls/14_1/14_1_2.pdf), seeing as most statists I encounter feel that defense is the core service that the state provides and is unable to be provided by private entities. The paper covers both defense from external threats (militia) and internal (dispute resolution).

I envision a system of worker solidarity, if you could call that a system. If one anarchist sees another getting ripped-off, he will come to the other's defense. Human's can empathize, after all, so I don't think worker solidarity is very far fetched.

Can you really separate anarchism and capitalism each from ethics? Capitalists will try to argue that profitable things are ethical, but I guess the term for that is cognitive dissonance.

Some people are physically stronger and/or smarter than others. They have to choose to use their strength to dominate others though. Anarchists believe that choosing to do so is wrong. As such, most do not consider families are necessarily hierarchical. Sure, family trees are hierarchical, but the actual relationships don't have to be. Families are hierarchical when parents exploit their children, as in the case of JonBenét Ramsey for example. A dominant spouse treating the other like an employee is messed up, too.  I suppose it's even possible for children to exploit their parents. In an anarchistic family, all the members are partners. They depend on and care for each other according to their individual needs and abilities. As I understand it though, some individualists anarchists believe that children are property. I don't understand why, though.

As for people needing leaders, I suppose in some cases they might. If a group of anarchists decide that they require management to properly do their work, they can democratically elect a willing, recall-able manager with specific responsibilities for that job. They will share with him the products of their labor according to any additional work that that job might entail.

Blame the victim? Come to think of it, I guess Trisha Meili only has herself to blame. I mean, that's what you get for jogging in central park. Heck, that's what you get for jogging. Bitch should have ran!
Capitalists take advantage of people. Humans can choose not to be capitalists. Humans are neither foxes nor scorpions.

It is not far fetched. Workers will and do have solidarity, they just have different solidarity.  The Garbage Men Workers solidarity will be different than the Programmers solidarity.  The hunter's solidarity will be different than the prey's solidarity.

Solidarity is abound and around, but its far from being uniform.

Obviously, workers will have the most affinity for those that they work most closely with. However, anarchists, as a matter of worker solidarity, will not prey on each other or other non-exploiting workers. Of course, individualists anarchists probably disdain solidarity and envision other methods.

FatherMcGruder,

I came across this post, I'm still reading it, but I'm curious about your thoughts: http://socialmemorycomplex.net/features/let-the-free-market-eat-the-rich.html

Enjoyed that post!  Indeed, most current aggregations of wealth would not be able to sustain themselves in a free market.

Amen. 

Amen Ra  :P

Awesome.

I read it. It's well written, but only a partial justification for anarchy because it only covers abandoning government. I agree that we ought to do so, as opposed to violently demolishing it, and that it would diminish the ability of capitalists to engage in super profitable enterprises. However, simply abolishing government isn't enough to preclude capitalists from consolidating their efforts and forming a new government to allow for super profitable enterprise again. Also, imagine that confused workers might take up arms to defend their employers in the absence of government. If these loyalties persist, or capitalists can generate new ones, after an old, large state disappears, we will simply have lots of mini-states which people could only ever inhabit at the mercy of the capitalist kings. Ultimately, anarchism will only work if, in a given society, capitalists exist in the minority if at all.

I do agree that markets will function better without government intervention, and that governments will always intervene despite the promises of their supporters. However, free markets will never exist in the presence of middlemen gatekeepers, employers, renters, usurers, people who collect more than their work entails, if they actually do any.

The other think that grates me about the article is its presumption that anarchy and natural law are one in the same.
According to the folks at NAMBLA, it's human nature for adult men to bugger little boys. I would think that if we somehow discovered that they were right, anarchists would still oppose pederasty because anarchists, first and foremost, oppose authoritarian relationships whether or not they naturally occur.

Certainly, many anarchists and capitalists believe that their philosophies describe natural law, but that does not make it so. If it should turn out that humans naturally behave capitalistically, anarchists will either continue to oppose that behavior or stop subscribing to anarchism.

Ultimately Anarchists are the worse sort of... Capitalists.
"No rules" applies from rich to poor, the poor may try to rob the rich, but still the rich can hire muscle. You can't come with a "no rules" society and expect such to be even close to any sort of "utopia communism".
To the end, discuss anarchy is like discuss any other utopia, it's senseless and roundabout to a bunch of violent folks and spoiled kids in need of soccer (football if you're American) more often to play around with riot police. Nothing to take serious...

Discussing reliable alternatives to the current systems is however possible, one gaining force, is a semi or even direct Democracy. Removing the plain old and designed for societies with few to no communications at all, the "representative" (Representing who?!) party system.

You have not described anarchy here. For a better understanding, I recommend you start here (http://infoshop.org/page/AnarchistFAQSectionA1).

That's chaos, not anarchy. Anarchy means that there are no arbitrary rulers.

There are actually two very important rules in anarchy.

1. Don't use aggression against other people or their property. (self-defense is fine, we aren't pacifists)

2. The only legitimate way of obtaining property is by homesteading unowned property or legitimate title transfer i.e. trading, gifting, gambling, etc. (no stealing or fraud)

That's it. If you stick to these two rules, you cannot have any form of state since states collect taxes which is theft. By the way, these aren't rules that anarchists idealistically expect everyone to follow. On the contrary, we acknowledge that there will always be people that violate these rules. In response to these rule breakers, we each will use force to protect ourselves and our property.

That link makes my head want to explode! Socialism is fine as long as it's voluntary. You're free to go live in a monastery, hippie commune or what have you, but as soon as you start redistributing property by force, you're being immoral. I also find it hard to fathom how anyone could think that voluntary trade is ever exploitative. If I trade you a loaf of bread for a fish, obviously you value the bread more than the fish and I value the fish more than the bread. If not, why would we voluntarily trade? By trading, we each come away with something we find more valuable than we had originally. We are both better off. How is that exploitative? It's not.

I asked the same question of FatherMcGruder. Still don't understand it to this day.

Actually I did, in practical terms. That site is yet another bogus pseudo-anarchist utopia bs.

which aims to create a society within which individuals freely co-operate together as equals. -> Is it? And what if they don't want to co-op? Will call the cops on them?

As such anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control -> Yeah! Everybody does the same... and everybody does nothing.

For all of the anarchist BS you end up always with the same; A HUGE LOAD OF RULES, even worse than the "archists" (with government). And to very bottom a nobody understands how lack of ways to enforce such rules.
Sorry... anarchism is plain non-sense. There's nothing to understand because other than break public stuff and join protests to unleash violence, anarchists themselves can't understand or even conceive in practice their own theories. Are just a sort of political hooligans...

I disapprove of joining protests to unleash violence for the sake of "smashing capitalism".

So because a minority of black people steal, all black people steal? Because a minority of Christians blow up abortion clinics, all Christians are terrorists? That's just absurd. Read my 2 rules above. Smashing the property of others violates rule number 1. They aren't very good anarchists if they are doing that.

I think you just have an axe to grind and don't want to learn why you're wrong.

Sorry, if you've even one rule that's already no anarchism at all.
Anarchy has no statement against(or for) scam, fraud, violence/non-violence, etc... that's what makes Anarchists (or the ones we normally call them as so) nothing but dreamers unable to be taken seriously. You always need ONE rule. It doesn't matter which actually, but it's needed.

Take for an instance why most of the World drives by the right whereas English, Asians, Australians and South-Africans by the left. Does it makes difference whether you drive by left or right? No, it's a matter of habit. However it makes difference if you try to port your habits to somewhere else, like an English driving by the left on USA or an American by the right on UK.
Anarchy is just being erratic - without government or rules or anyone to enforce them -, "YOUR Anarchy" (the only place where your two rules exists) doesn't prevail over "OTHERS' Anarchy". And despite you don't like robbers, scammers, violence and so on, it doesn't mean at all that some "OTHERS'" don't either.

Furthermore on the fallacy of Anarchy comes the "me as others" and irrational belief on some sort of "objective or supreme morality". What YOU do and what YOU think is not or may not be what OTHERS do or think. So you can't say that just because you wouldn't go stealing, robbing and murdering, others won't either... specially because by practice we know some will and you will need someway to make them stop (that's what police is for).
Also by the practice of the closest thing to Anarchy to be presented as a State ever, Communism, they had to deal with those refusing to accept a rule that makes non sense at all, in such case the wack job theories of Marx with the wacker ones of Lenin, in the most violent of ways, being the Ukrainian genocide a fair example and the to the sum 70 million assassinations by the state in USSR and currently 90 million at China.

Anarchy is also the ultimate statement of individualism and as such the worse of Capitalism - unregulated one.

But it's pointless to discuss it as any reliable source of anything, Anarchy is too unorganized to ever be able to present itself as any sort of state.

EDIT: to the end it makes as much sense as the Jehovah Witnesses' heaven...
http://www.watchtowerinformationservice.org/beau.jpg  ;D

Then you don't understand anarchism. If you want to know what anarchism is about, ask an anarchist. Here comes one now...


Try attacking anarchism as we actually define it instead of your straw man version. As long as you persist in denying our definition, your not really attacking anarchism. The choice is yours.


*facepalm*

Can you tell me what your definition of "work" is, and how it is decided how much one person should rightfully collect?  This will help me understand your position better.

Here's my two cents on anarchy. Regardless of whether its a good idea or not, its impossible, and I'll explain why.

Its a basic human desire to poses. To own bitcoins, dollars, a house and wife with 2.4 kids and a car in the garage, what have you. We all have the desire to acquire something. In an anarchic system those items, once acquired, have no security. There's nothing stopping anyone from just coming up and taking anything you have. So the general population would inevitably seek to secure their assets by hiring someone to protect them; to enforce the concept of ownership. Like an old west sheriff. The seed of governance. Humanity can not abide anarchy as it directly violates our instincts as beings that acquire and consume.

It's not me who's denying "anarchism rules", it's you who are creating them in an (poor) attempt to make it look nicer. Call it "Minimalistic State" or something else, because as long as you call your "thing" Anarchy and at the very same time you try to sell rules for it, it's a bogus Anarchy.

You forget the subjectivity or morality; you kill a passing-by guy and get arrested / you kill an enemy at war you get yourself a medal; to the practical terms you would be doing the same; killing someone. That's how the World is, this is what morality sums up to be.
Other than subjective, morality is also subject to the time and circumstances factors, at certain age certain circumstances would justify something, at other age the changes on those circumstances may make the very same action immoral.

Violence and coercion are the only effective ways to deal with indigents; it wasn't "invented yesterday" nor "the unjustified violence of the state", it has been as so since it evolved from tribes to complex societies; where people not family related have to deal with each others, with degrees on empathy to be very lower towards general society than family and friends for obvious reasons and as eventually people will have collision of interests some ruling is needed and ways to enforce it. What really (and only) matters is to set a fair or as fair as possible rules to determine what is or isn't an indigent - as this is relative to the morality being applied.

0.62 :)

I agree. It reminds me of when people go to the store to buy something and the price is much higher than they expect but they buy it anyway, and then complain about the transaction.

Well if you didn't think the can of beans was worth $12, then why did you trade for it? Because you were hungry?

That voluntary trade by it's very definition means you deem the beans more valuable than the cash (at that moment).

Dooood, "cash" has no value whatsoever, it's just a way to set a "neutral value" which can be traded for anything you need. On the bitcoin2cash example, what if I've the bread but don't like fish? We wouldn't be trading... if no "neutral value" can be set - like cash - than either I wouldn't be giving my bread over your stinky fish or your will riot over the need of bread and try to rip it off from me.
Put "cash" as neutral, you trade your fish with anyone up to it, I receive the "cash" and go buy meat from somebody else.

To the end, anything basically is more valuable then than cash, cash is a mean not an end - unless you're a coin collector or something.

Also you do trade for need, not quite voluntarily. You need one thing and have something that person having the thing you need needs... All around one word: NEED.

As for people complaint on prices... don't bother, you could give it for free and they would still complaint. Complaint is an odd feature of the human nature, 90% of it you forget right away. Like in couples, most of weddings they spent the time complaining of each other and still keep together the whole life.

There is no such thing as need vs. want. All human desires are wants. I want to live. I want to eat. I want to be happy. Etc. There is no need to live or anything else. Needs are just fudge words used in an attempt to make certain desires seem more important.

If you are alone on this Earth, you have to hunt, fish, farm or forage to survive. If you don't, you will die. Is nature somehow forcing you to do any of that stuff against your will? No, that's absurd, you want to live so therefore you do what it takes to survive.

So why is it that when we add other people to this equation, suddenly you start making demands on them? They don't owe you anything. If they offer you some food to do some work, they are only increasing the number of opportunities you have. You could still go hunt, fish, farm or forage to survive, or just lay down and die. The choice is yours and it's all completely voluntary. The world does not owe you a living.

You should read some more of my posts or peruse that FAQ some more.

Stepha Kinsella is not an anarchist. He is a capitalist.

I've been using the word work to indicate the process of creating something new, or restoring something, by your own labor. That which you create or restore by your own labor is rightfully yours. So, if I go and farm a potato myself, that potato rightfully belongs to me. One can only own the product of some labor if he himself does that labor. So, if someone simply claims to own the farm on which I farmed the potato, a landlord, he does not rightfully own that potato. I believe that people can use markets to determine the value of that which they produce and trade it accordingly. However, under capitalism I cannot freely access a market. I have to go through the landlord, a middleman, who will give me less for the potato than what he can get selling it on the market. He will gain the difference between the market value of the potato and my wage without having done any work. Because I rightfully owned that entire potato, I will have lost that difference. The only way landlords can get away with being landlords is if they have the authority to do so. Either a larger state grants them this authority, or they establishes it themselves by whatever forces they can muster, thereby creating their own little states. If I try to bypass him and keep the potato or the entirety of that which I can get on the market for it, my landlord will persecute me. Capitalists love gaining without doing work and therefore strive to become landlords, employers, and usurers. You can throw intellectual property holder in there, too. But, capitalists cannot be these things without some kind of state.

To be fair, other anarchists have different, non-market ways of valuing and exchanging the products of labor. An Anarchist FAQ describes some, but they don't really appeal to me.

"No true Scotsman" fallacy.

Playing semantics are we... anyway, by your words you ended up stating exactly the core of Anarchy and what it is all about; the worse of Capitalism and extreme individualism.
For the record, nobody owns you nothing also... but probably, because we're a social sort of animal people care about people. Go figure! How silly of them when they could just lay down and die or watch you die.  ;D

Luckily for the human species, Anarchy has 0% chances of survival. You see... the lack of hierarchy makes it the most easy target and sitting duck on the planet, standing no chance whatsoever against even quite small organized armies. Organization is the core of success - even for hunting by the way, taken we're, in the relation speed/strength/size, the weakest and slowest animal around and more up to be a pray than a hunter; unless we use our advantage: Organization and Strategy, that's why we have brains...

The ultimate question over Anarchy is exactly that... "is doesn't appeal you". No matter what FAQs are or not written they represent the vision of one claimed to be Anarchist without any value whatsoever to the whole "Anarchist community", taken under such seams everyone does as he pleases and everybody pleases differently.

If anarchy was some kind of fundamentalist individualist philosophy then we'd be opposed to voluntary socialism and even team sports, clubs, etc. I've got no problem with voluntary things like that. In fact, I don't even demand that you embrace capitalism. Anarchy is the only ideology that can accommodate capitalism, socialism, communism, syndicalism, etc, all at once. If you want to go live in a hippie commune, have at it. I'm against aggression, not collectivism. You're welcome to think of yourself as some kind of worker bee or ant. I won't be joining you though. Either you accept my wishes peacefully or you're going to use coercion to bend me to your will. That's all it comes down to, peace or war. It's your choice.

Fallacy! Voluntarism implies "do if you want". If you don't... well... too bad.


At the very same time allows none... What you say is that within the erratic anarchist society some groups will organize according to Capitalism, others according to Socialism, other according to something else... And yes, there will be groups, humans ARE NOT lone wolves, we're a sort of monkey and act according to our nature! At some point thus the interests of those groups will collide and they will enter at war. Hey! Go figure! Your vision of anarchy is what the world is already if you wide a bit your sight to the global spectrum.


Again, that's YOU... but YOU in Anarchy are just one member, not a fair representative of anything, due to the kind of (lack of) rule, but yourown.


Deny reality doesn't change it. Sorry...


For what concerns me and as long as you don't cross my space be at will to do whatever you want. However, in this World of Anarchy, I can't say my vision resembles everyone's vision.

Yes, there will always be peaceful people that are attacked by others that are violent and coercive. That applies to any system. You are right about anarchy already existing at a global level otherwise there would be one world government. I'm not sure what your point is since all that does is show that anarchy can and does exist.


So, you want to pretend that I'm the only peaceful anarchist?

Two different concepts; you're talking of Anarchy on the citizen level, whereas the existent one is on global level. Countries co-exist in Anarchy to each others (to some degree... there's submission either), but citizens doesn't.
This is a matter of practice, actually, Anarchy can exist in very small groups - there're just 200 something countries -, but can't on societies with millions of individuals.


Wrong! They're both violent and coercive, they just want to impose different views. That baloney of "pacific people that's pushed to war" makes no sense at all!


Nope, but that being Anarchy you are just you, not able to speak for anyone else of the same "party".

I didn't say anything about pacifists. I think that's suicide. However, there is a difference between aggression and self-defense.

Another example is during the Hurricane Katrina crisis, some guy brought down a truckload of bottled water and was selling it for something like $25 a gallon. There was a line of people buying it and someone in line called the cops. When the cops showed up and forced him to stop selling water, all the people in the line started clapping. That was a real "WTF" moment for humanity. It shows that most people are just plain stupid. If you want the water and are willing to stand in line and pay high prices for it why are you happy to see the supply being cut off?! Didn't you really want that water? If not, why were you paying so much for it? It boggles the mind.

What most people don't understand is that price gouging serves two purposes, one is rationing and the other is increasing the supply. If there is a disaster and you go to the grocery store and the prices are the typical prices for milk, orange juice, flashlight batteries, etc, the first guy in line is going to load up his cart and buy the place out because he knows he might need it. If the price for a gallon of milk is $25 though, he's probably going to buy just one or two and leave some for the rest of the people in line. Also, since the prices go up, all the suppliers start bringing in more supplies to make a profit which helps to satisfy the increased demand. It's like a cry for help that says, "Hey we need milk over here so bad that we are paying $25 a gallon! Send more milk!" If you artificially force the prices to remain low it's limiting how loud you can cry for help.

Even a cursory review of that FAQ would reveal to you that a number of anarchists wrote it. They also cited many other anarchists' works and disclaimed against representing all anarchists except for where all anarchists agree: anarchism is a revolt against capitalism and government.

You are delusional. You and BCEmporium are lost causes so I won't be engaging in conversation with either of you again. Sorry but I have better things to do, like bashing my head against a wall.

You have a higher tolerance than I.

Was it something I said?

That goes without saying, unless the two of you share an apartment, and you used his toothbrush.

Why are so many people pro-peaceful interaction and voluntaryism when someone wishes to get married or find friends to hang out with, yet so quick to whip out the implicit violence whenever money enters the picture?

Cognitive dissonance.

I know, just hoping to hear what the fashionable explanation is these days.

Posted in the wrong thread, try again over at http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5643.0

What's aggression and what's self defense just depends on which side of the barricade you're.

Anarchy, translated from the Greek, means "without rulers".  There is nothing contradictory about having no rulers but still having rules.  If you and I agree that we should NOT steal from each other, that is an agreed upon rule, but there is no ruler.  We would probably both self enforce this rule because we both have an incentive to not be stolen from.

Bitcoin is basically an example of an anarchic system working.  Bitcoin has no rulers but MANY rules which are agreed upon by the people who run the software.  There are many examples of anarchy working throughout world.  In fact most of everything you do is probably anarchic in nature.  "Anarchists" that I know mostly just want to see anarchy expanded into the realm government usually monopolizes such as arbitration/courts and defense.  Especially in US courts these days, rules are mostly made up by the ruling class who set them.  The rules are then enforced primarily by the ruling class.  The rules many times are not be agreed upon by all parties but rules would necessarily be agreed upon in an anarchic system.

This is absolutely the case.  In fact, I'd wager that a truly anarchic society would probably have a greater respect for law and rights by far than most (or any) current 'democratic' state.  If you think about it, our current society has much more disorder and chaos than any society for which any Anarchist is arguing.  We have laws against murder, theft, and kidnapping; but if you're amongst an arbitrary 'elite,' you can break one or more of those laws without punishment.  In fact we have so many laws that the average person commits three felonies a day (http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594032556/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1302469221&sr=8-1), and anytime a state (in the generic sense) prosecutor wants to see you in jail, he can do so.

Too many rules is the same as no rules at all.

I'd also like to note that number and scope of rules/laws is one thing that has not been subjected to the free market yet.

I've to say that whether I don't like Anarchy nor it would be a fairy tales World, I do agree to the excess of regulation.
But also society tends to misunderstand and steer up laws and rules, easily sells itself to pure fascism out of the void fascist promise; «give me your freedom, I'll give you security»... yeah right! As Benjamin Franklin wrote «Those willing to trade their freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both».

That's why education is the key.  A society composed of individuals who mostly understand rights and human nature will tend to be much freer and secure than that "theoretical" society that would be willing to be molested for a promise of safety.

People can only be manipulated to the extent that they allow others to manipulate them.