My doubts about anarchy

[TiagoTiago]

...

Inter-species aggression is higher then intra-species aggression (especially if you eat meat, but even not you kill the plant to eat it). ...
...

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

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

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

[wb3]

...

Inter-species aggression is higher then intra-species aggression (especially if you eat meat, but even not you kill the plant to eat it). ...
...

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

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

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.

[lnxbtc]

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.

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)?

[em3rgentOrdr]

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.

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":

(5) Robert Bidinotto: No Final Arbiter of Disputes

One common objection — this is one you find, for example, in Robert Bidinotto, who's a Randian who's written a number of articles against anarchy (he and I have had sort of a running debate online about this) — his principal objection to anarchy is that under anarchy, there's no final arbiter in disputes. Under government, some final arbiter at some point comes along and resolves the dispute one way or the other. Well, under anarchy, since there's no one agency that has the right to settle things once and for all, there's no final arbiter, and so disputes, in some sense, never end, they never get resolved, they always remain open-ended.

So what's the answer to that? Well, I think that there's an ambiguity to the concept here of a final arbiter. By "final arbiter," you could mean the final arbiter in what I call the Platonic sense. That is to say, someone or something or some institution that somehow absolutely guarantees that the dispute is resolved forever; that absolutely guarantees the resolution. Or, instead, by "final arbiter" you could simply mean some person or process or institution or something-or-other that more or less reliably guarantees most of the time that these problems get resolved.

Now, it is true, that in the Platonic sense of an absolute guarantee of a final arbiter — in that sense, anarchy does not provide one. But neither does any other system. Take a minarchist constitutional republic of the sort that Bidinotto favors. Is there a final arbiter under that system, in the sense of something that absolutely guarantees ending the process of dispute forever? Well, I sue you, or I've been sued, or I am accused of something, whatever — I'm in some kind of court case. I lose. I appeal it. I appeal it to the Supreme Court. They go against me. I lobby the Congress to change the laws to favor me. They don't do it. So then I try to get a movement for a Constitutional Amendment going. That fails, so I try and get people together to vote in new people in Congress who will vote for it. In some sense it can go on forever. The dispute isn't over.

But, as a matter of fact, most of the time most legal disputes eventually end. Someone finds it too costly to continue fighting. Likewise, under anarchy — of course there's no guarantee that the conflict won't go on forever. There are very few guarantees of that iron-clad sort. But that's no reason not to expect it to work.

[MoonShadow]

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.

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. 

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.

[wb3]

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.

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. 

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

[TiagoTiago]

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

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.

...

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...)

[wb3]

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

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.

...

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.

[sortedmush]

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

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.

...

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...)

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.

[lnxbtc]

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.

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.

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.

 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":

(5) Robert Bidinotto: No Final Arbiter of Disputes

One common objection — this is one you find, for example, in Robert Bidinotto, who's a Randian who's written a number of articles against anarchy (he and I have had sort of a running debate online about this) — his principal objection to anarchy is that under anarchy, there's no final arbiter in disputes. Under government, some final arbiter at some point comes along and resolves the dispute one way or the other. Well, under anarchy, since there's no one agency that has the right to settle things once and for all, there's no final arbiter, and so disputes, in some sense, never end, they never get resolved, they always remain open-ended.

So what's the answer to that? Well, I think that there's an ambiguity to the concept here of a final arbiter. By "final arbiter," you could mean the final arbiter in what I call the Platonic sense. That is to say, someone or something or some institution that somehow absolutely guarantees that the dispute is resolved forever; that absolutely guarantees the resolution. Or, instead, by "final arbiter" you could simply mean some person or process or institution or something-or-other that more or less reliably guarantees most of the time that these problems get resolved.

Now, it is true, that in the Platonic sense of an absolute guarantee of a final arbiter — in that sense, anarchy does not provide one. But neither does any other system. Take a minarchist constitutional republic of the sort that Bidinotto favors. Is there a final arbiter under that system, in the sense of something that absolutely guarantees ending the process of dispute forever? Well, I sue you, or I've been sued, or I am accused of something, whatever — I'm in some kind of court case. I lose. I appeal it. I appeal it to the Supreme Court. They go against me. I lobby the Congress to change the laws to favor me. They don't do it. So then I try to get a movement for a Constitutional Amendment going. That fails, so I try and get people together to vote in new people in Congress who will vote for it. In some sense it can go on forever. The dispute isn't over.

But, as a matter of fact, most of the time most legal disputes eventually end. Someone finds it too costly to continue fighting. Likewise, under anarchy — of course there's no guarantee that the conflict won't go on forever. There are very few guarantees of that iron-clad sort. But that's no reason not to expect it to work.

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.

[em3rgentOrdr]

If you were a profit maximizer, you would not care what I got, and co-operation would be much easier
to accomplish.

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.

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.

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.

[lnxbtc]

If you were a profit maximizer, you would not care what I got, and co-operation would be much easier
to accomplish.

Huh?  Really?  Don't most profit maximizers simply want to make profit?

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.

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.

Absolutely.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[em3rgentOrdr]

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

[FatherMcGruder]

Can you recommend further reading on anarchist social institutions? Thanks.

http://infoshop.org/page/AnAnarchistFAQ

[BitterTea]

Can you recommend further reading on anarchist social institutions? Thanks.

I've always liked this, The Private Production of Defense, 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).

[FatherMcGruder]

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"?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

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.

Capitalists take advantage of people. Humans can choose not to be capitalists. Humans are neither foxes nor scorpions.

[wb3]

I don't think worker solidarity is very far fetched

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.

[FatherMcGruder]

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.

[BitterTea]

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

[em3rgentOrdr]

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.