LPG, very thought provoking questions. I always appreciate the kinds of questions you ask, man. Of all the people on this board, you make me re-think my positions the most. Sometimes you flatout call me out when I'm being stupid, and while it may not seem like it at the time, i really do appreciate it, lol.
Not sure if that's worth anything to ya, but I just wanted to say it.
Assuming anarchy is desirable and it will take place some day, what would be the precipitating event that makes it happen?
1. Would it depend on the decision of a minority, like the anarchists at RPF?
2. Would it happen when anarchists move to state or city, like Keene, New Hampshire?
3. Would it happen when a significant number of people realize that taxation is theft and want to stop it?
I'm not confident enough to say any of them are the way "it will happen", or anything like that, but all of those factors do seem important to me.
1 and 2 seems like they are pretty related and are about of equal importance but, 3 is easily the most important one in that list to me. You can't fight evil, when people can't even see the evil. We need expose evil to change individual minds, before we can change the world and move towards more free-markets on a large scale. Not only that, but show them how they can achieve freedom in their own lives if they stop worrying about everyone else.
It's not the rapid solution that a lot of people seem to want, but I think it's probably the only real one that exists.
If the third scenario is the one that will bring about anarchy, I argue that at least at first, the government will get much smaller. After all, when attitudes changes significantly people do force the government to stop doing some things. For example, alcohol was once illegal and then it was made legal.
That seems intuitive, but the way I see it, the current existing states will all collapse at some point in the future, as states always do (not all at once, of course). And when they do, something will replace them. If that something is just another state, well then it's only a matter of time until the cycle repeats and we're back to square one, as far as I can see it.
In regards to "legalizing" substances... well... I suppose it could be argued that stopping alcohol prohibition was an example of the state getting smaller in one category. However, the state still has a very heavy hand in the alcohol trade, and it is anything but a free-market product. They just modified the rules a little bit, it's hardly "legal". Not to mention they have since expanded prohibition into many other substances.
In a way, getting the state to end prohibition by "legalizing" alcohol, was really just letting the state taking over and run the whole business by taking a massive cut of it all and setting all the rules. I can't even open up a bar without paying off bureaucrats for a "license" and obeying all the arbitrary rules that go along with it.
Considering that you don't believe we will ever move towards a smaller state, you probably don't believe that anarchy will come about as in the third scenario. So what will happen before anarchy takes place, assuming it does some day?
I believe that we probably will have a smaller state at some point in the not-so distant future, after the current ones we live under fail. It will be an improvement at first, but I think it's reasonable to assume that these states will grow 'til they collapse once again, no matter how small they are in the beginning.
I don't think it can be argued that we will establish a functional minarchy which will then lead to an Anarchy. I think Minarchy can only result in more government, not less.
I truly believe Individual Freedom / Anarchy is something virtually every single human wants for himself/herself. I also believe it exists virtually everywhere, all the time in most of our personal lives.
Anarchy on a wider scale can only grow naturally out of our human nature, it will not grow out of a Minarchy. The state will.
