And what of a governments role in protecting one's liberty? Is it reasonable to expect 300,000,000 people to live in peace when no one has the authority to enforce the rule of law? We saw what happened in New Orleans when the police lost their authority over the city. This nation has the highest murder rate in the world. Crime is hardly unusual in most populated areas. Is there any reason for me to believe that violent crimes wouldn't increase exponentially? There are parts of this country where you can get shot for wearing the wrong color t-shirt. Do you really want to see what happens when gangs are left to their own devices in cities like Chicago and New York? They would become the new monopoly on authority in their areas. If freedom is unlimited then it is also unprotected. I know I'm posing a strawman for most of the libertarians in here, but LSDR seems to feel that absolute anarchy is the way to go. I disagree, and I guarantee that anyone who's lived through an anarchy would share my opinion.
That's what happens when the nanny state abandons her little babies. Take away prohibition, welfare and gun control, and you take a bite out of crime.
There would be authorities that would enforce the rule of law in a stateless society. Yes, New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina is a stateless society. You? Probably not. You don't seem to want to read or even listen to any of the information being presented. You seem content with strawmanning.
The courts and law enforcement would be privatized. Don't mistake a collapse of large gov't with anarchy. There is such a thing as spontaneous order...all the way from trade to a crowd exiting a movie theatre. Anarchy is simply people governing themselves. People will still choose leaders (coaches, bosses, preachers, etc.), which is why I don't care much for the word anarchy, but they can not impose those leaders on other people. All this talk of economic collapse, wars, mass violence and hunger is the exact opposite of what free-market /anarchy delivers. Aside from oil the respect of (or the inability to disrespect) the free-market has given rise to the greatest creation of wealth in human history. We all can look around and see what large scale disrespect of the free-market delivers...debt and division among people. Ideas, not men or institutions, rule the world. One is individual liberty, free-market, anarchy and the other is centralized power, collectivism, gov't.
To Jimi thing. Aside from the spontaneous order argument here's an example of a free society. Before the chinese gov't came with guns the Tibetan buddhist monks were living in a stateless society. The dali lama (sp) was the leader but cooperation was voluntary. (insert sarcasm here) We all know how dangerous and destitute the buddhist monks were before the chinese gov't came to 'solve the problem' of anarchy. I remember so many news reports about buddhist monk on buddhist monk crime in Tibet.
Cute talking point, but the condescending tough guy libertarian talking down at the weak and dependent statist starts to look like a pathetic ego trip after a while. Not talking about you personally, but it's a pretty common tactic around here. True on the first one and third ones. I don't know about welfare, though. I know there are plenty other reasons for getting rid of it but taking money out of the hands of the poor seems to me like it would increase the crime rate, if anything. Who or what gives these authorities the right to enforce the law? Who decides what the law is? To whom do these authorities answer to? Why should anyone respect their authority in the first place? What do they do with criminals? Are there trials? Judges? Juries? Who is keeping these people in check so that they are not corrupted and their power is not abused? Who's paying for all of this? I assume all of these institutions would be privatized, but I don't see where their profits would be coming from. I suppose the most obvious would be through fines and court room fees, but I can see that being a rather distinct conflict of interest due to the incentive that would be placed on police forces and court rooms to arrest and prosecute as many criminals as possible. You don't have to answer if you think this is another straw man. I'm just curious. I've been without headphones all day. Sorry for ignoring the youtube vids. That's interesting, but buddhist monks are hardly a convincing sample study.
http://mises.org/rothbard/foranewlb.pdf Rothbard goes over these concerns in Chapter 12. Hoppe also discusses private courts in this article. Here's another good article on private law by Robert Murphy. This video is also good: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9dZATrFak]YouTube - How Could A Voluntary Society Function?[/ame] As a general rule, all the questions that start with "who" can be answered with groups of people working together voluntarily. These groups would generally take the form of companies. Think of insurance companies, private courts, private defense agencies, etc. If someone doesn't respect a legitimate authority, there will be consequences which are dependent on the situation. What a private defense agency or court system does with a criminal is also dependent upon the situation at hand. Trials, judges and juries may be necessary if the dispute could not be handled without a mediator. Just because an institution doesn't mean it is for-profit. This incentive is actually in place right now. In a free society, corrupt courts would have an incentive to not just prosecute non-violent criminals because: 1) it would cost money to hold and try them 2) there would be competition, so if they were corrupt, another institution could easily run them out of business This competition doesn't exist right now, which is why you see all the corruption in the government's courts. Honestly, I could sit here all day and try and explain how a free society would function, but I feel like that would be a waste and your time would be better spent by reading material by authors like Rothbard, Hoppe and others. I may even re-read chapter 12 in Rothbard's book after I finish my math homework.
Who says that everyone on the North American continent would have to live together? Communities could be organized in a regional/cultural fashion, so places like California could be as socialist as they want, and Texans could be as Conservative as they want. Perhaps one of the most persistent mindsets when it comes to political organization is that we all need to be united under one banner, why can't we have regions chose the rules that best suit them, and freely trade with each other? This is what the Founders originally wanted, but people like Hamilton were too concerned with their own agenda to turn America into England 2.0. 300 million people can't live under the same system, and it's unreasonable to expect them to. Regions can be decided based on cultural/geographical divides, so say you're a commie living in Texas, if you want to be governed by a commie Government you can travel a couple hundred miles to California. Choice works everywhere else in our lives, why can't the same be said for Government?
I tried to explain that to a socialist on here in another thread that if we had followed the Constitution, as the Founders intended...we wouldn't have a huge, shitty Federal Government and perhaps he would have a socialist state he could be living in RIGHT now. Link to thread
Jimi, if you wouldn't mind, I'd suggest you read the following two papers, they're perhaps the most convincing arguments in support of actual anarchy (God, I hate that word, I'm going to just say spontaneous order from now on). http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/Obvious.pdf http://mises.org/journals/lf/1975/1975_01.pdf (Scroll to page 3 and it's Society Without A State, or you can just read this) They aren't too long, but they're really awesome. Another good one is http://mises.org/books/production_of_security.pdf.
Libertarian Utopia Jeff Tucker on the Jetsons. Pushing Buttons Like the Jetsons by Jeffrey A. Tucker Pushing Buttons Like the Jetsons - Jeffrey A. Tucker - Mises Daily
Has anyone heard of agorism? I just heard about it yesterday and looked it up. I'm about to do some more research, but my initial response is positive. It seems like a good plan for those of us who want to promote free-market without wasting time, energy, and money on the political system.
Love the jetsons article. One thing thats really been bothering me latley is people blaming cannabis prohibition on big pharma and private prisons. People claim that the profit motive of medicine is whats keeping our beloved herb illegal. To me it seems obvious that the profit motive also drives a lot of the medical marijuana businesses opening and running in legal states as well. The point of capitalism is competition... meaning if big pharma wants to be successful they must compete with the medical MJ industry for our business and interest. In a true capitalist economy this would mean real competition...but introduce government into the equation and the problem starts. Its not the fault of big pharma for using all of the unfair resources they have within government to fight mj...its the fault of our structure of corporatist government that allows for single interests to win out. All of the problems liberals complain about regarding corporate power are caused by the very government power they seek to expand. Where do corporations get their legal personhood and limited liability? How do big pharma and other big corporations keep mj illegal? To me the obvious answer is government so to the progressives who say we have the same goals but different means of getting there... I think we have the same goals in mind but we just recognize the source of the problem.
I've got to say, my perspective has been thoroughly rattled and even flipped upside down after reading through some of these. "The Obviousness of Anarchy" was the one that I was most impressed with. He framed the argument extremely well, and in doing so, proved the logic of an anarchic society feasible in areas I was previously certain it would fail. Towards the beginning he says, which was really interesting to me because I had always thought of civilized anarchy as a sort of utopic fantasy, and he really did make a brilliant case for why that isn't necessarily true. His logic was sound throughout, and it was almost comical how he, nearly every time, managed to strike down my objections a sentence after I thought of them. I'm not at all yet convinced that humans would be better off without government, but it's a much more intriguing and legitimate argument than I had ever imagined.
Although, the bit about anarchy not being a 'fantasy' as you put it, is something I've argued for a thousand times on this forum. People like Hasnas definitely have a better command of the English language than I do, so I guess it's understandable
Yeah, well there's really only so much you can say in posting on a forum, and I really just needed it broken down for me point by point. I've read a lot of political theory for school written by some of the most brilliant intellectuals in history, and that's had a big impact on my own political views. Most if not all of them condemned anarchy, so it was definitely an enlightening experience to read an argument in favor of anarchy presented in such a thorough and sophisticated manner.