What is Anarchy?

[sleuth]

shut your sense of humor right to hell ,,would you?lol

[Anonymouse]

A good article again on "Anarchy" and the utilitarian arguments against it for "impracticality".

What It Means To Be an Anarcho-Capitalist
by N. Stephan Kinsella

Butler Shaffer’s recent LRC article, What is Anarchy?, prompted discussion on the Reason blog and inspired me to set down a few ideas I’ve also had along these lines.

Libertarian opponents of anarchy are attacking a straw man. Their arguments are usually utilitarian in nature and amount to "but anarchy won’t work" or "we need the (things provided by the) state." But these attacks are confused at best, if not disingenuous. To be an anarchist does not mean you think anarchy will "work" (whatever that means); nor that you predict it will or "can" be achieved. It is possible to be a pessimistic anarchist, after all. To be an anarchist only means that you believe that aggression is not justified, and that states necessarily employ aggression. And, therefore, that states, and the aggression they necessarily employ, are unjustified. It’s quite simple, really. It’s an ethical view, so no surprise it confuses utilitarians.

Accordingly, anyone who is not an anarchist must maintain either: (a) aggression is justified; or (b) states (in particular, minimal states) do not necessarily employ aggression.

Proposition (b) is plainly false. States always tax their citizens, which is a form of aggression. They always outlaw competing defense agencies, which also amounts to aggression. (Not to mention the countless victimless crime laws that they inevitably, and without a single exception in history, enforce on the populace. Why minarchists think minarchy is even possible boggles the mind.)

As for (a), well, socialists and criminals also feel aggression is justified. This does not make it so. Criminals, socialists, and anti-anarchists have yet to show how aggression – the initiation of force against innocent victims – is justified. No surprise; it is not possible to show this. But criminals don’t feel compelled to justify aggression; why should advocates of the state feel compelled to do so?

Conservative and minarchist-libertarian criticism of anarchy on the grounds that it won’t "work" or is not "practical" is just confused. Anarchists don’t (necessarily) predict anarchy will be achieved – I for one don’t think it will. But that does not mean states are justified.

Consider an analogy. Conservatives and libertarians all agree that private crime (murder, robbery, rape) is unjustified, and "should" not occur. Yet no matter how good most men become, there will always be at least some small element who will resort to crime. Crime will always be with us. Yet we still condemn crime and work to reduce it.

Is it logically possible that there could be no crime? Sure. Everyone could voluntarily choose to respect others’ rights. Then there would be no crime. It’s easy to imagine. But given our experience with human nature and interaction, it is safe to say that there will always be crime. Nevertheless, we still proclaim crime to be evil and unjustified, in the face of the inevitability of its recurrence. So to my claim that crime is immoral, it would just be stupid and/or insincere to reply, "but that’s an impractical view" or "but that won’t work," "since there will always be crime." The fact that there will always be crime – that not everyone will voluntarily respect others’ rights – does not mean that it’s "impractical" to oppose it; nor does it mean that crime is justified. It does not mean there is some "flaw" in the proposition that crime is wrong.

Likewise, to my claim that the state and its aggression is unjustified, it is disingenuous and/or confused to reply, "anarchy won’t work" or is "impractical" or "unlikely to ever occur."1 The view that the state is unjustified is a normative or ethical position. The fact that not enough people are willing to respect their neighbors’ rights to allow anarchy to emerge, i.e., the fact that enough people (erroneously) support the legitimacy of the state to permit it to exist, does not mean that the state, and its aggression, are justified.2

Other utilitarian replies like "but we need a state" do not contradict the claim that states employ aggression and that aggression is unjustified. It simply means that the state-advocate does not mind the initiation of force against innocent victims – i.e., he shares the criminal/socialist mentality. The private criminal thinks his own need is all that matters; he is willing to commit violence to satisfy his needs; to hell with what is right and wrong. The advocate of the state thinks that his opinion that "we" "need" things justifies committing or condoning violence against innocent individuals. It is as plain as that. Whatever this argument is, it is not libertarian. It is not opposed to aggression. It is in favor of something else – making sure certain public "needs" are met, despite the cost – but not peace and cooperation. The criminal, gangster, socialist, welfare-statist, and even minarchist all share this: they are willing to condone naked aggression, for some reason. The details vary, but the result is the same – innocent lives are xxxxxled by physical assault. Some have the stomach for this; others are more civilized – libertarian, one might say – and prefer peace over violent struggle.

As there are criminals and socialists among us, it is no surprise that there is a degree of criminal-mindedness in most people. After all, the state rests upon the tacit consent of the masses, who have erroneously accepted the notion that states are legitimate. But none of that means the criminal enterprises condoned by the masses are justified.

It’s time for libertarians to take a stand. Are you for aggression, or against it?

Notes

1. Another point: in my view, we are about as likely to achieve minarchy as we are to achieve anarchy. I.e., both are remote possibilities. What is striking is that almost every criticism of "impracticality" that minarchist hurl at anarchy is also true of minarchy itself. Both are exceedingly unlikely. Both require massive changes in views among millions of people. Both rest on presumptions that most people simply don't care much about.

2. Though the case for anarchy does not depend on its likelihood or "feasibility," any more than the case against private crime depends on there never being any acts of crime, anarchy is clearly possible. There is anarchy among nations, for example. There is also anarchy within government, as pointed out in the seminal and neglected JLS article by Alfred G. Cuzán, "Do We Ever Really Get Out of Anarchy?" Cuzán argues that even the government itself is in anarchy, internally – the President does not literally force others in government to obey his comments, after all; they obey them voluntarily, due to a recognized, hierarchical structure. Government's (political) anarchy is not a good anarchy, but it demonstrates anarchy is possible – indeed, that we never really get out of it. And Shaffer makes the insightful point that we are in "anarchy" with our neighbors. If most people did not already have the character to voluntarily respect most of their neighbors’ rights, society and civilization would be impossible. Most people are good enough to permit civilization to occur, despite the existence of some degree of public and private crime. It is conceivable that the degree of goodness could rise – due to education or more universal economic prosperity, say – sufficient to make support for the legitimacy of states evaporate. It’s just very unlikely.

[patlajan]

Your skills of copy and paste are as developed as ever. From now on just inlcude the link in your post and save the webspace for original posts.
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/003234.html

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by patlajan Your skills of copy and paste are as developed as ever. From now on just inlcude the link in your post and save the webspace for original posts.
http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/003234.html

The link doesn't contain the full article from the Blog. Thus I felt the urge to copy and paste it in its entirety. My thread Mr. Eggplant.

[Anonymouse]

Then they will likely appoint themselves. The offices will need to be filled somehow, and believe me, they will be. The people will be ruled whether they like it or not. The only way your idea could even possibly work is if every person in the world simultaneously agreed to not recognize any leaders nor have any desire to be a leader themselves. I'll give you two guess as to whether or not that's ever going to happen. If that isn't idealism, I don't know what is.

That's a bit like saying legitimizing the existence of God negates any sense of individuality, as all of His children are necessarily subordinate to him and ruled over with the threat of eternal damnation. What is more tyrannical than that?

First of all, we must make a distinction between God and State. God is not physical. The State is a physical entity comprised of people, so this analogy is already flawed from the onset. I may believe in God, but I also believe that God is outside time and space and good and evil, and the belief that he has ordained us with free will and it is precisely because each of us are different that the your analogy does not hold, and every persons relationship to God ( those who believe in God ) is different from one another, based on different experiences and convictions that each individual has for themselves experienced.

The State on the other hand, is a real entity on the physical world comprised of men and its basic existence is in conflict with the individual. To the extent that a State exists, it relies on collective thinking and mass mindedness, the greater the individualism in society, the more danger to the State since this promotes free thinking and even critical of the State. To quote Murray Rothbard:

If men were like ants, there would be no interest in human freedom. If individual men, like ants, were uniform, interchangeable, devoid of specific personality traits of their own, then who would care whether they were free or not? Who, indeed, would care if they lived or died?

[loseyourname]

Originally posted by Anonymouse First of all, we must make a distinction between God and State. God is not physical. The State is a physical entity comprised of people, so this analogy is already flawed from the onset. I may believe in God, but I also believe that God is outside time and space and good and evil, and the belief that he has ordained us with free will and it is precisely because each of us are different that the your analogy does not hold, and every persons relationship to God ( those who believe in God ) is different from one another, based on different experiences and convictions that each individual has for themselves experienced.

Now that you made your distinction, allow me to make my comparison. The state gives you rules, tells you how to live your life, and threatens you with punishment if you don't comply, up to and including death. If you suscrive to Christianity, as you have said you did, then you believe that God has given us commandments to live by, and guidelines as to what we should do with our lives, and threatens us with eternal damnation if we do not.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Now that you made your distinction, allow me to make my comparison. The state gives you rules, tells you how to live your life, and threatens you with punishment if you don't comply, up to and including death. If you suscrive to Christianity, as you have said you did, then you believe that God has given us commandments to live by, and guidelines as to what we should do with our lives, and threatens us with eternal damnation if we do not.

Let me make a further distinction. The State may make laws. but these are human laws, and the State is comprised of men. Thus, to those that are superstitious in your eyes, and believe in God, see an order higher than man, see natures rigid laws, inviolable, whereas most secularists and Statists, see man as God. Indeed that is perhaps the whole philosophy from the Ancient Mystery Schools of Egypt, to Jewish Mysticism, down to the Knights Templar, all the way up to the Freemasons, and other societies like the Skull and Bones, which have produced the present neo con leader.

The analogy between State and a belief in God, are mutually exclusive for the two are not even in the same field. And at some point, there are rules, not necessarily man made, but even a walk in nature's field will show you that things move by rules. God is not a State, nor can God committ acts of genocide or murder or theft, the State, being comprised wholly of men, can. Thus whereas God is God, the State is an entity comprised of men, making its own laws, claiming it is setting up rules for you to follow, you cannot kill, you cannot steal, etc., and like we've pointed out already, the State itself engages in the same behavior, yet criminalizes individuals for doing the same thing. If the State is there to check over us, who is there to check over the State? God does not xxxxxle over the individuals development, the State does.

That the West is now the apogee of prosperity is due precisely to the individualism and the capitalist revolution which ushered in the division of labor and specialization, when there was little to no regulation harping on the free enterprise, and we are riding out the last breaths of it, as society becomes more and more centralized and regulated. But eventually all man made States dissolve, per the second law of thermodynamics, since they all move towards disorder and chaos, the more ordered they get. Of course science calls it thermodynamics, but one can also see this as a product of God. However you see it, no matter what man made system comes and goes, certain laws remain unchanged and above man.

I suggest you read that last article I posted about anarchy, to have a better understanding of what it is about. Scroll up.

[loseyourname]

I know what anarchy is about, and I have no issue with it. I agree with you that it's the ideal way for a world to run. I just don't think it's viable. I suppose we will never know, as there is no way it will ever happen.

Getting back to the distinction between state law and God's laws. I suppose if you believe God is really all that great and has every right to impose his will upon us, then you shouldn't have any problem with his doing so. But that is not the God of the bible. He calls Himself petty and jealous and vindictive, hardly admirable traits. Furthermore, modern Christians, including yourself, seem to place free will as the most important and virtuous of all of the characteristics that God has imbued us with. In fact, it is such a wonderful good that it justifies the existence of innumerable evils and massive suffering. That being said, "do as you please but suffer eternal damnation if you don't do as I please" hardly seems my idea of free will. That's a bit like putting a gun to your neighbor's head, asking for his wallet, then telling the jury later that he gave it to you of his own free volition and you are not responsible.

[Anonymouse]

Originally posted by loseyourname Furthermore, modern Christians, including yourself, seem to place free will as the most important and virtuous of all of the characteristics that God has imbued us with. In fact, it is such a wonderful good that it justifies the existence of innumerable evils and massive suffering. That being said, "do as you please but suffer eternal damnation if you don't do as I please" hardly seems my idea of free will. That's a bit like putting a gun to your neighbor's head, asking for his wallet, then telling the jury later that he gave it to you of his own free volition and you are not responsible.

Well, I know what you're saying, but I don't want to stray too much off topic, for we are somehow getting back into God and free will when we were really talking about the State. I know that if we really wanted to drag this, we can eventually make a connection, but I want to avoid that, and instead keep them separate. I would like to add that yes, having free will, in order to be free for man to do good, he must also be free to do evil. It is because of our desires, our needs as individuals and our unique personalities that we have certain aspirations, spiritual, that I believe there is a soul, with a free will, and the latter is evidence of the former. Of course, this all depends on what view you take. Marx believed that you are a product of the society, in other words, being determines consciousness. Or do you believe that consciousness determines being?

To quote Albert Pike, "What is it in us that thinks? Is thought the merit result of material organization; or is there in us a soul that thinks, separate from the resident in the body?"

Lastly, it is important to note that the Bible has lost some of its original writings and it was comprised of many and it was just a part of the whole Torah, as well as having been gone through many translations, and tampering, one can only guess at how much changes whether conscious or otherwise have happened by the time it has come to us through the ant hills of time.

[Anonymouse]

Going back to what I stated earlier about the capitalist revolution and how it went hand in hand with specialization and individualism, it was precisely because now people didn't have to worry about producing for subsistence that they were able to concentrate their greater energies and surpluses into specializing in one area, heightening and developing their individual skills which reflecting themselves. This is why the West surpased most of the world at a tremendous pace.