I'm a Minarchist!

[LibertiORDeth]

I got a 122 on that test.
I'd like to consider myself a Minarchist.

112, and I do too.

 

[skinnyskittles1989]

I am a minarchist. I have trouble following the logic of making a rule to have no rules...

There's only one rule and it's the non-aggression principle that no man or group of man may aggress against any other man or man's property. The private courts use this law as common law.

 

[Delaware]

59 here, medium core libertarian. I'm not for complete annihilation of the state.

 

[ronpaulhawaii]

There's only one rule and it's the non-aggression principle that no man or group of man may aggress against any other man or man's property. The private courts use this law as common law.

Ahh, now we have 2 "rules". I wonder who would codify, and enforce, the non-aggression principle?

And isn't it another rule that we would only have 1 rule?

Methinks most "anarchists" would realize they are actually minarchist, if they simply followed the theories to their logical conclusions.

Main Entry: an·ar·chy
Pronunciation: \ˈa-nər-kē, -ˌnär-\
Function: noun Etymology: Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek, from anarchos having no ruler, from an- + archos ruler — more at arch-
Date: 1539
1 a: absence of government b: a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority c: a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2 a: absence or denial of any authority or established order b: absence of order : disorder <not manicured plots but a wild anarchy of nature — Israel Shenker>3: anarchism

 

[Kludge]

Ahh, now we have 2 "rules". I wonder who would codify, and enforce, the non-aggression principle?

And isn't it another rule that we would only have 1 rule?

Methinks most "anarchists" would realize they are actually minarchist, if they simply followed the theories to their logical conclusions.

Main Entry: an·ar·chy
Pronunciation: \ˈa-nər-kē, -ˌnär-\
Function: noun Etymology: Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek, from anarchos having no ruler, from an- + archos ruler — more at arch-
Date: 1539
1 a: absence of government b: a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority c: a utopian society of individuals who enjoy complete freedom without government
2 a: absence or denial of any authority or established order b: absence of order : disorder <not manicured plots but a wild anarchy of nature — Israel Shenker>3: anarchism

^ what an ugly definition....

Main Entry:an·ar·chism Pronunciation: \ˈa-nər-ˌki-zəm, -ˌnär-\ Function:noun Date:1642 1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups 2 : the advocacy or practice of anarchistic principles


The "One Law" is flawed. You can use it as a core principle, but not the only law of the land.

Law 3 - If a private, or voluntarily funded "public" court found you guilty of 3 minor acts (1 minor act of aggression could count as 2 acts if the judge finds it necessary) of aggression or 1 major act ("violent" rape, murder, etc) of aggression. If they are convicted on 3 minor acts or 1 major act, they are FORCIBLY banished from the country and disallowed to retrieve their property.

Law 4 - A convict MUST be allowed the opportunity to at least ONE appeal to a form of higher court.

With these four laws regarding the judicial system (There are also needed laws for elections), it's totally voluntary, gives INCOME to the people who paid earlier (Part of another string of laws I developed), and effectively banishes those who can't abide by the principle. It DOES commit aggression. There's no way around it. You could only, at best, argue that it's a "pre-emptive" move and as such, self-defense.

Minarchism STILL promotes government aggression towards it's own people thru compulsory taxes. Anarcho-Capitalism requires a system of volunteerism, where "public" organizations will take the role of government.

Here's an amazing series of videos if you haven't watched and you scored below 120 =P http://youtube.com/user/ST0PandL00K

 

[Richie]

I'm a minarchist Libertarian - but I'm a Constitutionalist as far as our government is concerned.

 

[ronpaulhawaii]

^ what an ugly definition....

Main Entry:an·ar·chism Pronunciation: \ˈa-nər-ˌki-zəm, -ˌnär-\ Function:noun Date:1642 1 : a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups 2 : the advocacy or practice of anarchistic principles

Since we seem to be using the same dictionary (M-W), perhaps we can agree on the greek roots of both words - from anarchos having no ruler,

I do find your distaste(ugly?), and tactic, to be interesting; a literal anarchist can use any definition they like, because there are no rules. How-ever without an agreement of definitions, any debate would be chaotic, meaningless, ineffectual...

Meanwhile, minarchism is not so easy to nail down:

"Minarchism encompasses a pretty broad spectrum of notions of limited government. Constitutionalism is one route. Another one is the notion of restricting government to the provision of police, courts and defense. Or one could take the route of advocating a decentralized federation of city-states or counties with no federal government. Then we have the objectivists who advocate voluntary funding of government, starting to get fairly close to anarchism (although they won't admit that), yet still allow it to maintain a territorial monopoly. Some minarchists seem to advocate a pretty strong national military. Others, like Hayek even, seem to actually be fairly close to being social democrats on economic policy. And some minarchists don't sound particularly different from paleo-conservatives to me. So it seems like minarchism is fairly arbitrary, without much of a set definition, if you ask me." http://mises.com/forums/t/942.aspx?PageIndex=1

Perhaps it will be best to just use the roots again and agree on, "Min (minimum) + archy (rule) = minimum possible level of government/rule.

The "One Law" is flawed. You can use it as a core principle, but not the only law of the land.

Law 3 - If a private, or voluntarily funded "public" court found you guilty of 3 minor acts (1 minor act of aggression could count as 2 acts if the judge finds it necessary) of aggression or 1 major act ("violent" rape, murder, etc) of aggression. If they are convicted on 3 minor acts or 1 major act, they are FORCIBLY banished from the country and disallowed to retrieve their property.

Law 4 - A convict MUST be allowed the opportunity to at least ONE appeal to a form of higher court.

With these four laws regarding the judicial system (There are also needed laws for elections), it's totally voluntary, gives INCOME to the people who paid earlier (Part of another string of laws I developed), and effectively banishes those who can't abide by the principle. It DOES commit aggression. There's no way around it. You could only, at best, argue that it's a "pre-emptive" move and as such, self-defense.

Minarchism STILL promotes government aggression towards it's own people thru compulsory taxes. Anarcho-Capitalism requires a system of volunteerism, where "public" organizations will take the role of government.

Here's an amazing series of videos if you haven't watched and you scored below 120 =P http://youtube.com/user/ST0PandL00K

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, ...

Main Entry: gov·ern·ment
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Date: 14th century

1:the act or process of governing; specifically : authoritative direction or control
2 obsolete...
3 the office, authority, or function of governing
4: the continuous exercise of authority over and the performance of functions for a political unit : rule
5 a: the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions and which is usually classified according to the distribution of power within it
b: the complex of political institutions, laws, and customs through which the function of governing is carried out
6: the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization: as
a: the officials comprising the governing body of a political unit and constituting the organization as an active agency
bcapitalized : the executive branch of the United States federal government
ccapitalized : a small group of persons holding simultaneously the principal political executive offices of a nation or other political unit and being responsible for the direction and supervision of public affairs: (1): such a group in a parliamentary system constituted by the cabinet or by the ministry (2): administration 4b

...

ISTM, that any organization necessary to enforce your rules would fall under one, or more, of the above sub-definitions. It would take a paradigm shift for anarchy to fall under this definition (one that would rival the hijacking of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" by our nemesis). No, I think definitions demand that we call a spade, a spade, and recognize your examples for what they are, a form of minarchy.

The crux of the bisquit (for me) is that, while I applaud the academics who push the philosophic envelopes, (and give birth to concepts such as "minarchy"), I shudder to think of how many innocents are drawn to Anarchy because it sounds cool, and have little, to no, idea of what they are talking about/fighting for...

While anarchists theorize, minarchists realize.

 

[Soccrmastr]

Minarchism is a terrible idea.

 

[Mr. White]

minimum government necessary? What's necessary? You need to enforce property rights. Which means you need a legal system, now you need a police system, now you need some sort of determing law as to who serves. now you need to collect tax to pay for these things, now you need some sort of tax system, no you need a tax collector and enforcer.

Now your country will be isolated and destroyed by the protectionist policies of the countries around it.

 

[Kludge]

Since we seem to be using the same dictionary (M-W), perhaps we can agree on the greek roots of both words - from anarchos having no ruler,

I do find your distaste(ugly?), and tactic, to be interesting; a literal anarchist can use any definition they like, because there are no rules. How-ever without an agreement of definitions, any debate would be chaotic, meaningless, ineffectual...

Meanwhile, minarchism is not so easy to nail down:

"Minarchism encompasses a pretty broad spectrum of notions of limited government. Constitutionalism is one route. Another one is the notion of restricting government to the provision of police, courts and defense. Or one could take the route of advocating a decentralized federation of city-states or counties with no federal government. Then we have the objectivists who advocate voluntary funding of government, starting to get fairly close to anarchism (although they won't admit that), yet still allow it to maintain a territorial monopoly. Some minarchists seem to advocate a pretty strong national military. Others, like Hayek even, seem to actually be fairly close to being social democrats on economic policy. And some minarchists don't sound particularly different from paleo-conservatives to me. So it seems like minarchism is fairly arbitrary, without much of a set definition, if you ask me." http://mises.com/forums/t/942.aspx?PageIndex=1

Perhaps it will be best to just use the roots again and agree on, "Min (minimum) + archy (rule) = minimum possible level of government/rule.




If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, ...

Main Entry: gov·ern·ment
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Date: 14th century

1:the act or process of governing; specifically : authoritative direction or control
2 obsolete...
3 the office, authority, or function of governing
4: the continuous exercise of authority over and the performance of functions for a political unit : rule
5 a: the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority and performs functions and which is usually classified according to the distribution of power within it
b: the complex of political institutions, laws, and customs through which the function of governing is carried out
6: the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization: as
a: the officials comprising the governing body of a political unit and constituting the organization as an active agency
bcapitalized : the executive branch of the United States federal government
ccapitalized : a small group of persons holding simultaneously the principal political executive offices of a nation or other political unit and being responsible for the direction and supervision of public affairs: (1): such a group in a parliamentary system constituted by the cabinet or by the ministry (2): administration 4b

...

ISTM, that any organization necessary to enforce your rules would fall under one, or more, of the above sub-definitions. It would take a paradigm shift for anarchy to fall under this definition (one that would rival the hijacking of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" by our nemesis). No, I think definitions demand that we call a spade, a spade, and recognize your examples for what they are, a form of minarchy.

The crux of the bisquit (for me) is that, while I applaud the academics who push the philosophic envelopes, (and give birth to concepts such as "minarchy"), I shudder to think of how many innocents are drawn to Anarchy because it sounds cool, and have little, to no, idea of what they are talking about/fighting for...

While anarchists theorize, minarchists realize.

The point I was getting at was the difference between voluntarily funded "government branches" and Minarchy's committing of aggression thru compulsory taxes.

 

[Sentient Void]

72 here. Medium-core libertarian from what it says.

I, personally am absolutely disgusted in the idea of complete anarchy. No laws of government whatsoever? Fucking retarded. I am pretty anti-absolutist about virtually all subjects... but anarchy? Seriously - WTF are you smoking? Unless you are speaking about something different than what the definition of anarchy really is... which would be mroe like minarchy... you are completely out of your fucking mind.

It would be back to complete nature... survival of the fittest. The biggest/strongest/smartest and combinations/variations of those.... I seriously think it would be a nation of "moral" people vs completely "immoral" people, and varying degress in between. And the immoral people would unfortunately destroy the moral ones.

I don't see anything wrong with minarchism... since that is a VERY broad idea... and if you think about it - minarchism isn't really an objective idea... it's fairly relative to what people are experiencing.

Minimum government (minarchism)... to what degree? I definitely see the "philosophy of liberty" as a pretty good limit. But as a absolute LIMIT.

As for privatizing everything? I believe if you privatize EVERYTHING then you'll just be looking right back at one giant bureacracy all over again. Corporate fascism? no thanks.

On a side note... I think this could turn into a really interesting discussion!

 

[skinnyskittles1989]

72 here. Medium-core libertarian from what it says.

I, personally am absolutely disgusted in the idea of complete anarchy. No laws of government whatsoever? Fucking retarded. I am pretty anti-absolutist about virtually all subjects... but anarchy? Seriously - WTF are you smoking? Unless you are speaking about something different than what the definition of anarchy really is... which would be mroe like minarchy... you are completely out of your fucking mind.

It would be back to complete nature... survival of the fittest. The biggest/strongest/smartest and combinations/variations of those.... I seriously think it would be a nation of "moral" people vs completely "immoral" people, and varying degress in between. And the immoral people would unfortunately destroy the moral ones.

I don't see anything wrong with minarchism... since that is a VERY broad idea... and if you think about it - minarchism isn't really an objective idea... it's fairly relative to what people are experiencing.

Minimum government (minarchism)... to what degree? I definitely see the "philosophy of liberty" as a pretty good limit. But as a absolute LIMIT.

As for privatizing everything? I believe if you privatize EVERYTHING then you'll just be looking right back at one giant bureacracy all over again. Corporate fascism? no thanks.

On a side note... I think this could turn into a really interesting discussion!

i think you are thinking about the socialist form of anarchy where there are no private property rights

 

[Delaware]

Privatized Police force and lawmakers? I'm for government on a smaller scale so local police is all good with me? Privatized police sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

 

[skinnyskittles1989]

if anybody has some time, this is a great book called For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto by Murray Rothbard.
https://www.mises.org/books/newliberty.pdf
ch 12 talks about privatizing police protection

 

[ronpaulhawaii]

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler - Albert Einstein

The point I was getting at was the difference between voluntarily funded "government branches" and Minarchy's committing of aggression thru compulsory taxes.

No matter the funding and other details; a government branch, by definitions, cannot exist in an anarchy. It is as simple as that. It is minarchy, at least.

Perhaps the difficulty is that the term minarchy is very new. IMO, the absurdity of a rule to make no rule prohibits serious discussion of anarchy as a viable method of government.

Finally, your rhetoric in the last part of your sentence seems a bit... over the top. I fail to see how you got to there from here:

"Minarchists agree that the guiding principle in determining what should or should not fall into the domain of the government is the maximization of individual liberty. Minarchists are generally opposed to government programs that either transfer wealth[citation needed] or subsidize certain sectors of the economy. However, most minarchists support some level of government funding, including perhaps taxation in some limited cases, as long as individual liberty and the non-aggression principle are not compromised.[3]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism#Overview

and perhaps more notably:

"But supporters of minarchism counter that a government could survive on private donations and the creation of trust funds without any form of taxation whatsoever. Even if a government could be voluntarily funded, then it still amounts to an authority with a monopoly of force over a given area, and as such would dictate and control. The mere existence of government, irrespective of how it is funded, undermines one's self-ownership, since to govern is to control."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism#Criticism

To summarize: I find the term anarchy to be medieval; maligned by predjudice and stained by history. I suggest that those who define themselves as such do themselves, and society, a disservice. Fanciful in theory, and absurd in practice, I find it ill-suited to define a credible socio-political movement.

I am glad to see the term minarchism being accepted and refuse to have any other definition, of that term, other than its roots, minimal rule, foisted on me. Minarchism is a big tent

 

[brandon]

Minarchism is a terrible idea.

Agreed. One day these minarchists will wake up any realize that if the state exists at all, even in very small forms, it will eventually infringe on your liberty.

 

[LibertiORDeth]

Interesting discussion...

 

[Kludge]

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler - Albert Einstein



No matter the funding and other details; a government branch, by definitions, cannot exist in an anarchy. It is as simple as that. It is minarchy, at least.

Perhaps the difficulty is that the term minarchy is very new. IMO, the absurdity of a rule to make no rule prohibits serious discussion of anarchy as a viable method of government.

Finally, your rhetoric in the last part of your sentence seems a bit... over the top. I fail to see how you got to there from here:

"Minarchists agree that the guiding principle in determining what should or should not fall into the domain of the government is the maximization of individual liberty. Minarchists are generally opposed to government programs that either transfer wealth[citation needed] or subsidize certain sectors of the economy. However, most minarchists support some level of government funding, including perhaps taxation in some limited cases, as long as individual liberty and the non-aggression principle are not compromised.[3]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism#Overview

and perhaps more notably:

"But supporters of minarchism counter that a government could survive on private donations and the creation of trust funds without any form of taxation whatsoever. Even if a government could be voluntarily funded, then it still amounts to an authority with a monopoly of force over a given area, and as such would dictate and control. The mere existence of government, irrespective of how it is funded, undermines one's self-ownership, since to govern is to control."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minarchism#Criticism

To summarize: I find the term anarchy to be medieval; maligned by predjudice and stained by history. I suggest that those who define themselves as such do themselves, and society, a disservice. Fanciful in theory, and absurd in practice, I find it ill-suited to define a credible socio-political movement.

I am glad to see the term minarchism being accepted and refuse to have any other definition, of that term, other than its roots, minimal rule, foisted on me. Minarchism is a big tent

As I said in a previous discussion somewhere... The One Rule (Non-aggression principle) is VERY deeply flawed. It should be only THE guiding and core principle the VOLUNTARILY FUNDED "government" is based on.

Call it a voluntary government if you want (Volunteerism, Voluntocracy, Voluntarian? Anarcho-Capitalism is widely accepted...), but ALL governments currently existing commit aggression thru the organized looting of it's people. You CANNOT tax and have a government that "does good". The ends NEVER justify the means.

Bleh... I'm going to write a essay on how "government" should function, make all the laws it needs to impose on itself and how to minimize aggression.

 

[JosephTheLibertarian]

Just looked up the different political/economical philosophies, and found out that I am a Minarchist.

Yeah, that was before I found out that I'm an anarchist. But I'm also a realist Stateless society is ideal, but I believe in dealing with reality, instead of just wishing away the system we're dealt. So how should I put it? I'm an anarchist at heart, but I'm a minarchist in reality.

 

[LibertiORDeth]

Yeah, that was before I found out that I'm an anarchist. But I'm also a realist Stateless society is ideal, but I believe in dealing with reality, instead of just wishing away the system we're dealt. So how should I put it? I'm an anarchist at heart, but I'm a minarchist in reality.

I concur.