I think I figured it out (a post only for liberty minded peaceful people)

[hazek]

I had a realization the other day and I want to share it.

First a little context. I'm unbelievably frustrated, frustrated at all the arguing, at all the bickering not just with statists but also between ourselves, frustrated at no visible and tangible change being achieved when it comes to my personal freedom and a life in peace and prosperity. I mean it's a good thing there's Bitcoin otherwise I'd be totally depressed at the world right now. So this is the frame of mind that I'm coming from and when I look for solutions I'm Interested only in those that would ease some of this frustration by actually providing some tangible results.

And if you're honest for a second, aside from our folk activism(you can read what I mean by that here: http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/06/patri-friedman/beyond-folk-activism) having a few more people starting to see that the principles we hold dear would actually benefit them and how destructive the status quo principles really are we haven't made any real progress. The state is still as powerful as ever and it's getting more powerful and it appears no scandal no matter how attractions (where are the people in the streets over PRISM?) will hold those psychopaths back.

The reason for this post is that I'm here to tell you hat I figured out why. And it's oh so simple. Think about it, if our principles are that much better for a society, why then hasn't the market gravitated towards them yet? Why does the market still support and even encourage the current state of affairs?? Simple. Being a violent thug is massively profitable! Yes. That's all there is to it. Our principles are loosing because they aren't as profitable as being a violent psychopath willing to pull the trigger and destroy lives for their own benefit. Just remember Stef's very successful "The story of your enslavement" video, I mean isn't that the main takeaway? Yes we're slaves, but we're slaves to violent thugs and they enslave us because it's highly beneficial to do so. That's why the market also gravitates towards this violence, there's profit to be made and some people don't mind doing the dirty deed in order to realize this profit.

If I'm right, then the solution to all of our problems is very simple, and it's not peaceful parenting or through logic derived objective morality theories. It's market forces.

How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug? That is the question that the correct answer to will solve all of our problems.

I have a few ideas already but I wont go into that in this post. I just wanted to get this realization off my chest and see what others think about it first.

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[MonadTran]

How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug?

Being a violent thug is only profitable because most people support the violent thugs. The majority of people developed some kind of blindness to certain forms of violence. That kind of blindness takes a broken childhood, massive propaganda and bribery, to develop. The fist two is what Stef is targeting at - fewer people with broken childhood, and counter-propaganda. Bitcoin is targeting the "bribery" part - without inflation, bribing a huge number of people into submission is much more difficult.

[btceic]

Because being a violent thug is easier.

I read a book recently called insanely simple, which clearly points to the reasons why it is so hard to make things so simple, including the answer to that which you seek.

Most people are not honest, not with other people and more importantly with themselves.

[btceic]

I also want to add that we haven't made the killer app yet that people "must" have.

Napster was an instant global hit because it filled a giant need, this is what we need.

Keep in mind "we are trying to disrupt the global status quo of the monetary system", read that last sentence over and over until it sinks into your head the implications and ramifications if we succeed.

[Spendulus]

....
How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug? That is the question that the correct answer to will solve all of our problems.....

Well,  violent thugs during Prohibition did pretty well, until we revoked Prohibition and made their businesses unprofitable.

Many parallels do exist today, so you might be on to something.

[crumbs]

...How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug? That is the question that the correct answer to will solve all of our problems.
...

"How do we make profiting by nasty means unprofitable?" 
And that's where Da State steps in -- by codifying a body of law & paying violent thugs to enforce it.
If you know of a better trick, you'll be rich & loved by all, myself included.

[vokain]

We need true and lasting sovereignty. Wherever we can find that we can spread our roots. The Internet is that one place, but we also need a physical locale.

[Rassah]

Simple answer: Supply of thuggery VS Demand for the thug's demise. I don't know if there is a market that let's people place such demands (bets?) yet, but the inverse relationship between increase in thuggery and increase in money calling for the thug's head should be able to reach a stable equilibrium, the intersection of which would hopefully be a pretty low level of both thuggery and demise demands.

[randomcloud]

Nobody's taking to the streets over the PRISM thing because they would be called "violent thugs" for doing so.

There is a real undercurrent in our country associating taking action (any kind of action) against the government with violence, and violence with everything bad, which shames and discourages people from actively taking part in political discourse.

People like you who call others "violent thugs" help the government spread that notion and keep people under control. You'd probably call the Founding Fathers "violent thugs" and call them traitors too.

Blaming the problem on violence is the act of a myopic ideologue. Violence is a symptom of the greater problem -- fascism -- not the cause of it. Rampant use of violence on a citizenry by a state is always a sign of fascism. Really, the U.S. government's non-violent ways of controlling the populace -- massive propaganda, spying and such -- is much more destructive, damaging, and far reaching than their violent actions. Their use of violence damages their credibility if anything.

As for the notion that being violent is profitable and that's what keeps the wheels turning -- considering how badly it tends to make local police forces and the U.S. government look when they're caught, I question this premise. How to make it unprofitable, though? Well, you can't. There are economic forces driving the violence which are powered by demand, and that demand is powered by many things including human nature itself. Not even the intervention of a state will get rid of the demand and where there's demand, economic forces will always find a way. Exhibit A: the drug war. Unless you switched to some other economic system there will always be a market for violence, and even then it'd never truly go away.

Instead of trying to get rid of violence, you need to focus your effort on getting rid of the circumstances that cause people to feel they have to use violence -- bullying, abuse, poverty, the like. We all know the fabled story of the schoolyard bully: he basically dominates because he can emotionally abuse and torture someone to the point where they use violence to make it stop, then use the system around them to get their victim into trouble, gaining complete and utter control over them. You would call the victim the "violent thug". The real (and just) solution would be to punish the bully in the first place. See what I mean?

Poverty's also a huge driving force in the use of violence. Lack of resources cause people to compete with one another for what crumbs exist, oftentimes violently, it strains relationships, destroys kids' ability to grow properly, etc. etc. If everyone had enough stuff to live comfortably and had no reason to worry they'd lose said comfort at some point in their life, they'd stop looking at their neighbor as competition and instead as a potential friend.

Money is the key to world peace, my friend, not hippie shit.

[benjamindees]

How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug?

By defending yourself, and others, with violence.

[herzmeister]

How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug? That is the question that the correct answer to will solve all of our problems.

Transparency, reputation, accountability.

[hawkeye]

I don't know how long you have been involved with these ideas or what kind of timeframe you had in your mind for their success, but I am not expecting significant progress in my lifetime.  Maybe we might start to see signs of s shift when I'm an old man (Currently in my 30's).  That's what I'm hopeful for.  Any progress that is faster than that will be unexpected but welcome.

You have to remember the brain-washing goes deep.  I know because I was heavily indoctrinated and it took a hell of a lot of thinking and reasoning to finally have the state destroyed in my mind.  Most people just won't do that.    The public schools don't teach people how to think.  They are relics of the past where people were trained to be obedient servants and work as factory workers or soldiers.

This is why I think Stef is correct.  We have to teach the children how to think.  The rest will come from that.  The brain is an extraordinary machine.  The market will adapt accordingly to their demands as they mature.   The state will become irrelevant.   

Every generation has a battle to be fought.   Humans came from the mud and we've been trying to improve ever since.  It's a long process.  We've purged slavery, human sacrifice and any number of horrible myths and traditions.  For our generation, it's government.  We are the abolitionists.   We can take enjoyment from talking and interacting with each other so that we don't feel alone in a world of TV drones.  But there's more of us than ever and better opportunities for interaction than ever.   

Hoping for the anarchistic world that we all know will be a huge improvement generally ultimately ends in frustration.  Best to take what we can out of this life knowing that our arguments are sound and our philosophy correct.  The govt make take our money but we don't support it.  It is just the gang that comes by looking for it's protection money.

Arguments online, if they get just one person to start thinking then it has been successful.  Planting seeds in people's minds will eventually come to fruition.  I have even seen the most vociferous defenders of the state eventually, years later, change.  It's slow going right now, but like all trends will go exponential at some point.  Where that point is, nobody knows...   If you feel yourself burning out, take a break.

[crumbs]

@hawkeye:
Don't take everyone whose thinking isn't in line with yours for fools.  Underestimating others always ends in tears & fail.  You talk about "planting a seed," and in the same breath call the unconverted "TV drones" who haven't been taught "how to think."  
Turning potential allies into enemies just ensures you'll be planting them seeds in poisoned ground

[Mike Christ]

I would think that the easiest way to cut the thugs from power is to stop using what enables them, which would be the very paper money they create from thin air, and to do this, you would use another currency--but ultimately, this would not solve the problem, as you would have to stop being taxed (and there are ways to tax Bitcoin indirectly, which would force you to use fiat or face jail time etc.)  If ever there is a time where all laws are gone, the last one remaining would be the government's ability to tax, and it can only be removed by force, since it's essentially the life line of the government.  Without taxation, the government would collapse in on itself and disappear, as there would be no incentive for anyone to work in a position where they had absolutely no power.  If money is the ultimate driving force behind the government--the bread and butter, the blood and the heart--then the simplest way to oust the bully is to disallow him to take your lunch money.  Further expanding on this idea, if money is what really drives the government, it would follow that money is what drives everything in a capitalistic system: a vote is not a vote if it is not cast with your wallet, which thoroughly outlines just why democracy is doomed to fail, as there are always those with extreme amounts of money who understand that a ballot means nothing, but a large sum of cash to the guy(s) in charge is everything.  Even with a law that says, "Do not kill others," every man still has his price, and someone somewhere will do anything if it meant cash, for money is the end-all, for it is above law: there is no higher law of capitalism than the market itself, and those who control the market, control the nation.

Back on topic: if there was a movement to "oust the bully", the bully would need to fight back.  Because the bully is armed, it is imperative that citizens remain armed.  As the bully knows its "peaceful" rule is coming to in end, it knows it will soon have to resort to direct violence to stay in command.  Because the bully needs to keep his fellow classmates alive (for you cannot collect lunch money from the dead), he will need to do this with as few casualties as possible.  Therefor, the bully aims to disarm the populace, both allowing him an easy as pie victory, and ensuring his income will remain absolutely peachy, should his classmates decide that they no longer need his protection.

I see no way to conquer the bully through peaceful means, for the bully will always initiate force the moment his rule is questioned, as he is known to do when times are dire.  So this should be expected.  However, that is not to say we cannot hamper the bully's ability to use force, which, as I described above, would involve cutting off the lunch money, the same act which would ensure the bully uses violence to keep his lunch money fund moving.  Considering our all-American bully has the most expensive military in the world:



It's a very sticky situation we've found ourselves in.  Feels pretty shitty knowing that, by simply existing, you are contributing to a force which could destroy the Earth several times over.  But I believe it's vital to understand just how serious this global problem is.  And I'm afraid I've been no help in contributing an answer as to how to stop such a destructive force.  But fucking with the bully's lunch money fund seems like it's the last thing you'd want to do; if possible, the American citizens could attempt to cut its nation's military down by several measures, and ensure they're allowed their weapons, but I don't think any of us wanted this to begin with, nobody wanted to fuck with the constitution except those who claim to represent us, which would only point out just how out of control those who run our government are, and a question is begged to be asked: for what means do they hope to accomplish with a military of such a magnitude?  What drives a nation to destroy itself to create such a bloated military?  But the answer is clear: for the domination of other nations, thus allowing the bully more power yet.

I think Bitcoin has something to do with this whole thing, but as many members have said, it is not the end-all solution to this problem.  But I'll be damned if it's not the lock for which we must find the key.

[vokain]

I see no way to conquer the bully through peaceful means, for the bully will always initiate force the moment his rule is questioned, as he is known to do when times are dire.  So this should be expected.  However, that is not to say we cannot hamper the bully's ability to use force, which, as I described above, would involve cutting off the lunch money, the same act which would ensure the bully uses violence to keep his lunch money fund moving.  Considering our all-American bully has the most expensive military in the world:

We forget about Gandhi already?

[Rassah]

Considering our all-American bully has the most expensive military in the world:

It's a very sticky situation we've found ourselves in.  Feels pretty shitty knowing that, by simply existing, you are contributing to a force which could destroy the Earth several times over.

This may in the end turn out to be a good thing. Do you know what brought down the other of the two 20th century biggest superpowers in the world? It wasn't Reagan, as republicans love to proclaim. It was excessive military spending, which drove their debt through the roof, and their money into the ground. All those tanks and ships are useless if there isn't anyone willing to drive them for free.

[Mike Christ]

We forget about Gandhi already?

Think his methods will work here?  Maybe...  Civil disobedience works great if you can get enough people to roll along with you but at the rate America's going, we're having trouble just explaining what the actual meaning of freedom is.  If America were occupied by a foreign force, it's easy to decide whose team you're on, which would naturally be home, not away, but when it comes to America, the intruder is the guy whose been living in our house before we were even born.  How we gonna tell him to get out?  We must first make a distinction between American government and American people, which is the most difficult hurdle we'll jump over before anything begins to happen.  Perhaps the recent scandal with the NSA will assist in this process but it may be wishful thinking that the Libertarian movement will gain a sudden rise in followers.  But I guess you never know.

This may in the end turn out to be a good thing. Do you know what brought down the other of the two 20th century biggest superpowers in the world? It wasn't Reagan, as republicans love to proclaim. It was excessive military spending, which drove their debt through the roof, and their money into the ground. All those tanks and ships are useless if there isn't anyone willing to drive them for free.

I hope you're right.  I stopped my own brother from joining the military, as he felt he had no other options, for he doesn't really do a whole lot of anything but play video games (Call of Duty, unsurprisingly), and so he has no actual skills in anything but the most basic tasks, which makes soldiering so attractive with all the cash they throw at you just to get recruited.  At some point in time, they have to run out of money, and it seems society is always coming closer to the realization of just how weak the dollar has become.  It's just, when does this realization finally become common knowledge, to the point where alternatives, like Bitcoin, look worth the effort to understand for Joe Schmoe?  But anyway, that's a very good point.  A military is useless without soldiers.  But at the same time, I worry a second draft may be just over the hill.  If so, I wonder how successful it'll be.

[Rassah]

But at the same time, I worry a second draft may be just over the hill.  If so, I wonder how successful it'll be.

People, who were forced to join the military against their own will, won't be compelled to fight their own citizens for free. There may be some issues with lies and promises of payment, and they may be enticed wit those promises when they see he economy faling apart around them, and they don't know why...

But the other god news is that, when something like this happens, it happens FAST. It'll likely be faster than the senate can even pass a draft bill. Read up some wiki stuff on Russian rubble collapse.

[Mike Christ]

People, who were forced to join the military against their own will, won't be compelled to fight their own citizens for free. There may be some issues with lies and promises of payment, and they may be enticed wit those promises when they see he economy faling apart around them, and they don't know why...

But the other god news is that, when something like this happens, it happens FAST. It'll likely be faster than the senate can even pass a draft bill. Read up some wiki stuff on Russian rubble collapse.

Hrmm, very interesting!  I'll have to check that out.

[Rassah]

Found a nice article on that

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sovietcollapse.htm

Except for the Reagan part, where they claim Soviets increased their budget in response to Reagan. Historical data sows otherwise:

http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/2012/09/let-end-this-nonsense-reagan-military.html

So it seems just propaganda against some existential enemy (terrorists!) is enough.

One problem: USSR was actually really socialist and communist, not like America is "socialist" and "communist." Also, they were pegging their rubble to the British pound for whatever reason, meaning once the peg couldn't hold any more, it *SNAPPED* like pegs always do. So maybe it will take a while here. Unless that theory about Bicoin becoming a financial black hole proves true, where as soon as Bitcoin and USD come close to being 50/50 used, Bitcoin will suck in all remaining USD wealth as people abandon USD enmasse, self-perpetuating it by causing BTC to rise and USD to fall drastically in the process.

[vokain]

Found a nice article on that

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/sovietcollapse.htm

Except for the Reagan part, where they claim Soviets increased their budget in response to Reagan. Historical data sows otherwise:

http://one-salient-oversight.blogspot.com/2012/09/let-end-this-nonsense-reagan-military.html

So it seems just propaganda against some existential enemy (terrorists!) is enough.

One problem: USSR was actually really socialist and communist, not like America is "socialist" and "communist." Also, they were pegging their rubble to the British pound for whatever reason, meaning once the peg couldn't hold any more, it *SNAPPED* like pegs always to. So maybe it will take a while here. Unless that theory about Bicoin becoming a financial black hole proves true, where as soon as Bitcoin and USD come close to being 50/50 used, Bitcoin will suck in all remaining USD wealth as people abandon USD enmasse, self-perpetuating it by causing BTC to rise and USD to fall drastically in the process.

And then, you win

[luv2drnkbr]

Violence will always be the final authority.  If a person has to give up X amount of money/power/whatever, or their life, they generally choose their life, thinking they'll be able to get money/power/whatever back as long as they are still at least friggin alive.

That being the case, game theory suggests that in any situation, you can have all the peace, negotiation, friendship and whatever else you want, but in the end, it's quite simple:  If I disagree and I'm stronger, I can just take what I want.  And what can you do to stop me?

Violence is always the baseline.  It may indeed be as Asimov called it "the last resort of the incompetent" but it is still a viable option.  And because using violence to simply take what I want is usually cheaper than cooperating, most peaceful relationships between countries are shaky at best and rely solely on trade negotiations with the full knowledge that war breaks out if economic trade isn't mutually beneficial.  Any and all non-violent societal interactions must necessarily still have the game theoretical threat of violence.

Violence is simply the baseline.

[hazek]

Violence is simply the baseline.

But that's beside the point. Even if violence is the baseline we clearly have the capability to cooperate and we clearly have people who prefer to cooperate. And given our technological advancement where muscles do not matter in oh so many cases anymore, couldn't we change the game in order for the game theory to yield a different most profitable action?

I mean isn't this what Bitcoin is?

There are so many players that have the ability to be violent thugs and perform a 51% attack however the system has an incentive built in where it makes much more sense to go along with everyone else and cooperate rather than destroy.

If my main premise is right, and we have the amount of violence because violence is profitable, surely if violence ceased to be profitable or if being non violent becomes order of magnitude more profitable we would have a lot less violence if any at all..

[Vandroiy]

hazek, your premise is correct. Let's skip the possible arguing about it for this post and just label it correct. The follow-up question is:

• Can we redesign the rules of society in a direction in which market forces favor peaceful, cooperative, productive interaction?

The answer is again yes and for all we know it would be a massive improvement. But a redesign must actually be executed to change anything. Obviously a change in society needs significant support, not just a few theorists talking about it. Unless you count running away to some island to start one's own mini civilization, this leads to another question:

• Can we persuade typical humans to favor an idea even if it is beyond their own comprehension?

Nope.

Seriously, can we? I can't. Remember you're up against politicians, skilled in persuasion, who can say and even do arbitrary nonsense just to win support.



Knowing you, I guess you'd end up at the same point anyway. Save yourself the hassle and try to focus on the last question. Even if this view were wrong, you can expect that someone knows how to do things better than our mad governments. The problem is that such people cannot persuade others, even of a vastly superior plan, as hardly anyone understands even the basics of markets.

Whoever it is, the people with the best model are probably aware of incredible possible gains. They can model why others reject it, and given time and attention they would be able to disprove opposing arguments. Useless. The audiences' attention spans would run out, then they'd be labeled arrogant for never giving in on their points.

Sorry, you figured out the right thing but nobody knows how to change the world from there.

Unless of course someone finds a non-evasive way to answer the last question with "yes". That would be epic in every sense of the word

[Elwar]

We live in an anarchist world of survival of the fittest.

It just so happens that the fittest is a collective of power that have set up rules of their liking and use their power against those who do not follow their rules. Otherwise known as government.

I do not know how you can change that without another group having more power and their own set of rules take over. Which would be much the same.

[crumbs]

How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug? That is the question that the correct answer to will solve all of our problems.

Consider the burglar who steals items from people's houses.

We can make it unprofitable to be a burglar by improving the security of our houses. To put the burglars out of business doesn't require that everyone burgler-proofs their houses; it just requires that enough people burgler-proof their houses that it becomes uneconomic to be a burglar.

It becomes unprofitable to burgle the burglar-proofed houses -- the rest are fine.  Burglars aren't violent anyway -- otherwise they'd be *robbers*

Alternatively, we can make it unprofitable to be a burglar by making it relatively more profitable for the burglar to do something else. A government that creates high levels of unemployment will make it relatively more profitable for burglars than than a government that allows full employment.

So already there's more than one way towards a solution.

It's the same with the violent thugs. There are many paths towards a solution, including these:

1. Remove the profit. The agorist movement aims to do this by moving all economic transactions down to the grassroots where they are unseen by the violent thugs, and therefore out of reach.

After the economic transactions are completed, i assume there's still "stuff" left -- things like laptops & ipads.  Those are the things commonly stolen & sold at the grassroot level.

2. Make it more profitable for the violent thugs to cease their thuggery. For example, a small country might find profit in selling "freedom passports" that would allow people to live without institutionalised thuggery in part of that country. A carribean island selling freedom passports would do very well financially, I think.

Caribbean islands fare much better by stamping tourist passports & making sure they don't stick around too long.  Without implicit thuggery enterprising thugs would come & thug up the place.

3. Remove the violent thugs from positions of violence. I'm a pacifist, so this path is not for me. But others will do it anyway, as we have seen recently in several Middle East countries. Of course, they have replaced the removed violent thugs by other violent thugs, but perhaps there's a way to "piggyback" on the removals perpetrated by others, whilst avoiding the new thugs. I haven't thought this one through fully, but it's likely in the future that the young generation will rebel against the debts incurred in their name by the current thugs.

Thugs can only be removed by thuggier thugs.  And so on and so on and so on.

4. Remove oneself from the violence. Seasteading is the obvious path forwards here. Maybe seasteads will be attacked by the violent thugs, but somehow I doubt it. Most violent thugs are too busy with their own "citizens".

Even Sealand, arguably the least desirable property in the world, was attacked & recaptured only by out-thugging the thugs.  And then there's ... Somalia!
 

5. Protect oneself from the violent thugs. Structure ones life to minimise the problems that the thugs can cause. Fly beneath the radar.

You're not suggesting that entire communities *hide,* are you?

[MonadTran]

5. Protect oneself from the violent thugs. Structure ones life to minimise the problems that the thugs can cause. Fly beneath the radar.

You're not suggesting that entire communities *hide,* are you?

When you find that entire communities want to become free and self-sufficient, that would mean "we" almost won. Right now, very few people are able to figure out they can do something with their lives, instead of demanding things from the thugs.

[Rassah]

• Can we redesign the rules of society in a direction in which market forces favor peaceful, cooperative, productive interaction?

• Can we persuade typical humans to favor an idea even if it is beyond their own comprehension?

Nope.

Seriously, can we? I can't. Remember you're up against politicians, skilled in persuasion, who can say and even do arbitrary nonsense just to win support.

Unless of course someone finds a non-evasive way to answer the last question with "yes". That would be epic in every sense of the word

We have designed a Peer-to-Peer file sharing mechanism to make copyright thuggery impotent and irrelevant.
We have designed 3D printing to make restrictions against owning certain items impotent and irrelevant.
We have designed Bitcoin to make financial regulations and restrictions impotent and irrelevant.

Now we just have to design an application or a piece of technology to make the monopoly on law and governance impotent and irrelevant. I have ideas as to how. I just don't have the means yet.

[ErisDiscordia]

Violence will always be the final authority.  If a person has to give up X amount of money/power/whatever, or their life, they generally choose their life, thinking they'll be able to get money/power/whatever back as long as they are still at least friggin alive.

That being the case, game theory suggests that in any situation, you can have all the peace, negotiation, friendship and whatever else you want, but in the end, it's quite simple:  If I disagree and I'm stronger, I can just take what I want.  And what can you do to stop me?

Violence is always the baseline.  It may indeed be as Asimov called it "the last resort of the incompetent" but it is still a viable option.  And because using violence to simply take what I want is usually cheaper than cooperating, most peaceful relationships between countries are shaky at best and rely solely on trade negotiations with the full knowledge that war breaks out if economic trade isn't mutually beneficial.  Any and all non-violent societal interactions must necessarily still have the game theoretical threat of violence.

Violence is simply the baseline.

I think there's a lot of truth to this. I'd like to point out something which a lot of people seem to be missing about this. If we assume, that violence can not be erased from human behavior (a fair assumption even if it ignores the potential for human evolution) what are the options to deal with this? The preferred solution today seems to be "set up a structure with legal monopoly on force and hope it will stay fair and benevolent in exercising its powers". There is a fairly obvious flaw with this: if we assume that violence is here to stay how does giving license to a group of people to be the only ones to use violence legitimately (and providing them with significant means to do so) improve the situation? We can reasonably expect, that violent people will gravitate towards this institution and the institution will provide them with further incentives to act violently.

The way to go in my opinion is decentralization of power, meaning decentralization of violence. With no one individual or group gaining overwhelming power it becomes more difficult to perpetrate acts of violence profitably. Just remember the biggest acts of violence in history have been perpetrated by highly organized institutions like the church and the government. A local mob or individual thugs are peanuts compared to this.

So to sort of answer OPs question: one part of the solution could lie in removing the incentive to commit violence. Not sure how to go about this, though there have been some good suggestions in this thread. The other part of the solution might lie in removing the ability to commit violence. This can be done by not having any one group of people claim overwhelming power over others. In other words: anarchy.

[hazek]

As a liberty-minded, peace-loving kind of person, I thought I might add my 2 cents...

...blah blah blah... market forces.

How can we make it unprofitable to be a violent thug? That is the question that the correct answer to will solve all of our problems.

Hmm... It's a tricky one. Eureka! Perhaps people could somehow "compete" against violence-backed institutions by providing their own, non-violent alternatives? And if the non-violent alternatives operate more efficiently, that'll encourage the 'violent' guys to upgrade or downsize. I've heard of cases where public swimming pools are shut down due to a private operator moving into the town and doing the same thing but more cheaply.

You can compete with someone who gets paid for their service regardless if people want it or not.

[crumbs]

[...]We have designed a Peer-to-Peer file sharing mechanism to make copyright thuggery impotent and irrelevant.

Gotta love the neocon mindset:  What's mine is mine, and what's yours?  Well, that's mine too.
My moneyz is my moneyz, keep yer hands offa' it!  COPYrights?  Intellectual propertyz stifle progress, and you're a thug if ya don't wanna *share* it!  Gimme!

[crumbs]

Are you not paying attention?  I'm for sharing, remember?  You're the one who wants to hoard all the moneyz, and let the poor eat crack!

Are you, now?

Yes, but it's getting pretty tedious.  OK, i'll spell it out:

1. You claim that taxes are theft, and see the tax collectors as thieves, thugs and bullies -- they take away your moneyz that you don't wanna share.
2. At the same time, you feel entitled to steal other people's intellectual property, which they don't want to share.
3. ? ? ?
4. PROFIT!!

I'd again like to remind you that the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging.
okbi.