The View on Anarchy

[PredatorOC]

Total 100% anarchy does not work and cannot last. It ends up turning into a totalitarian government in one day when the toughest meanest criminal takes over.

I agree with this to a point. I'm a minarchist myself, mainly since An-Cap isn't a viable option with a population that has learned from birth to rely on government for help. But I do think it could work with certain populations. For example, Ireland use to have a system very close to An-Cap. Somalia is a more modern example, though foreign interventions and attempts to force a central government on a tribal society aren't pretty.

I see no reason why An-Cap wouldn't work in a society where the majority are libertarians or willing to accept responsibility for themselves. Of course, achieving that stage is another thing.

 

[Black Dude]

Acquiring protection isn't that expensive. Consider the rather low expenses of maintaining local police forces. It's not like you need someone around you 24/7. And guns are an even cheaper (and probably better) form of protection.

Local police forces are paid by tax payers. People wouldn't be able to hire personal watchmen. Even if they grouped together, who would decide how many watchmen they hired? What if some people wanted more watchmen, but others can't afford it? All of the poor people would be forced to live together so they could afford someone to watch over their things. Then if one of the poor people ended up making some more money, and bought more property, he would want more protection. Then he would have to live in the next level up of community, because the other poor people can't afford the amount of protection he requires. Am I wrong about all of this?

Also, how is there Justice in an Anarchy if someone violates the rights of another? Wouldn't laws need to be made so there are enforceable rules to protect people? Who makes these laws? Are there rules for proposing laws? Who makes those rules? Or would someone just be able to kill and steal at will, as long as he has the guns for it?

 

[PredatorOC]

Local police forces are paid by tax payers. People wouldn't be able to hire personal watchmen. Even if they grouped together, who would decide how many watchmen they hired? What if some people wanted more watchmen, but others can't afford it? All of the poor people would be forced to live together so they could afford someone to watch over their things. Then if one of the poor people ended up making some more money, and bought more property, he would want more protection. Then he would have to live in the next level up of community, because the other poor people can't afford the amount of protection he requires. Am I wrong about all of this?

Yes, they are paid with tax money. But my point was that maintenance of police forces is not a huge expense. The worldwide average of police per capita is 2-3 to a 1000 people. And this is with large government bureaucracies and paper shuffling and the costs associated with them. So considering the improved efficiency and lower costs brought about by the free market, I don't see how anyone could be left out unless they voluntarily refused to pay for protection.

 

[Black Dude]

Yes, they are paid with tax money. But my point was that maintenance of police forces is not a huge expense. The worldwide average of police per capita is 2-3 to a 1000 people. And this is with large government bureaucracies and paper shuffling and the costs associated with them. So considering the improved efficiency and lower costs brought about by the free market, I don't see how anyone could be left out unless they voluntarily refused to pay for protection.

Wouldn't a lot of people voluntarily decide not to pay? Wouldn't taxes be required? Who decides what rules that the free market police are going to enforce? Can a person take 1 step on another person's property? What is the penalty for doing so? Who decides the penalty, if there is one? Would 2-3 private security covering 1000 be able to handle 10 men looting the people? Wouldn't they need the assistance of other private security? Who is going to pay for that other security help? Would a security monopoly be necessary?
Isn't the reason that 2-3 per thousand works because there are laws set so that if someone gets caught, they pay a particular consequence? Who would decide those consequences in an anarchy?

 

[PredatorOC]

Wouldn't a lot of people voluntarily decide not to pay? Wouldn't taxes be required?

I don't know why someone wouldn't pay, unless they live in a relatively safe area. Why would taxes be required?

 

[Black Dude]

I don't know why someone wouldn't pay, unless they live in a relatively safe area. Why would taxes be required?

Someone wouldn't pay because they aren't forced to pay, they just say "no thanks, I don't want to pay." But they still enjoy the benefits of the 2-3 people protecting everyone.
If 2-3 people are covering 1000, how are they going to force people to pay for those 2-3 people without taxes?

 

[G-Wohl]

I don't like how some people try to mold libertarianism into a lesser form of anarchy. Libertarianism still accepts that governance is important, if only done in the correct way and under the correct circumstances. The reason why libertarians swear by the Constitution is because it is the most-perfect form of determining the correct ways/circumstances government should be enacted. I turn to the very instinctual preferences of the human being to determine that governance is important - some people are simply not individual enough to survive in a fierce, uncompromising and competitive world established by anarchy. I am not a cruel enough person to suggest that every aspect of human living should be "every man for himself" or "survival of the fittest" because we are not like other mammals; we possess reason, affection, and the desire to do the right thing.

The point of governance, according to a libertarian, is to establish a body that maximizes individual liberty, which thus establishes maximum success in living life. (Otherwise, why not just be an anarchist?) Yes, far too many people abuse this power, and turn government into a body of force that severely detracts from this ultimate goal, but that is only because we don't follow the rules that are so perfectly laid out by our Constitution.

 

[PredatorOC]

Someone wouldn't pay because they aren't forced to pay, they just say "no thanks, I don't want to pay." But they still enjoy the benefits of the 2-3 people protecting everyone.
If 2-3 people are covering 1000, how are they going to force people to pay for those 2-3 people without taxes?

We are talking about a private enterprise. Those who have a need for protection, pay for protection. There are no taxes involved, nor does it have to be 2-3 police per 1000 people. You seem to be approaching the situation as though the current situation is optimal. It could be that no areas require the services of protection agencies. It could be that some areas require much more than now. My only point was that as an expense, we are talking about something that employs only 0.2-0.3% of people in the current situation. Many of whom require relatively little training.

 

[PredatorOC]

I don't like how some people try to mold libertarianism into a lesser form of anarchy. Libertarianism still accepts that governance is important, if only done in the correct way and under the correct circumstances.

Libertarianism is a blanket term. It includes Constitutionalists, Minarchists and An-Caps and everything in between. Which is why it is more accurate to call Paul a Constitutionalist, than a libertarian.

Edit: Come to think of it, Paul is somewhat more difficult to label. He has read plenty of Ludvig von Mises and other Austrian School economists, so he is probably in the Minarchist category. But he takes his oath of office seriously, so from that viewpoint, he is a Constitutionalist.

 

[PeterWellington]

People aren't ready for Anarcho-Capitalism right now, but I believe it's superior to any form of government once people understand its dynamics and begin to voluntarily build an infrastructure for it.

If you believe stealing is wrong, for example, how can you support the existence of the state? How is a mandatory tax not stealing? What makes the people who work in government any more special than you or I that they can steal?

Some people cannot conceive of a world without government because they cannot imagine what would replace certain parts of it (roads, legal system, etc.). But because you cannot imagine a solution does not mean it does not exist. Any product or service the government provides can be traded in a free market, it just takes more creativity in certain areas. You don't need the government, the government needs you.

 

[Verad]

Economics is based on scarcity. There is a limited amount of resources that we can use at any given time, and economics takes a look at how people make the most of the resources that are available to them. In a socialist system, people rely on government institutions to distribute resources in as fair of a manner as possible. However, no government, no matter how big, can efficiently manage all resources, especially since they very rarely take the real cost of goods into account.

For instance, think about how wooden pencils are made. Here is Milton Friedman discussing the manufacture of pencils:

Nobody knows how to make a pencil. There's not a single person in the world who actually knows how to make a pencil.

In order to make a pencil, you have to get wood for the barrel. In order to get wood, you have to have logging. You have to have somebody who can manufacture saws. No single person knows how to do all that.

What's called lead isn't lead. It's graphite. It comes from some mines in South America. In order to make pencils, you'd have to be able to get the lead.

The rubber at the tip isn't really rubber, but it used to be. It comes from Malaysia, although the rubber tree is not native to Malaysia. It was imported into Malaysia by some English botanists.

So, in order to make a pencil, you would have to be able to do all of these things. There are probably thousands of people who have cooperated together to make this pencil. Somehow or other, the people in South America who dug out the graphite cooperated with the people in Malaysia who tapped the rubber trees, cooperated with, maybe, people in Oregon who cut down the trees.

These thousands of people don't know one another. They speak different languages. They come from different religions. They might hate one another if they met. What is it that enabled them to cooperate together?

The answer is the existence of a market.

The simple answer is the people in South America were led to dig out the graphite because somebody was willing to pay them. They didn't have to know who was paying them; they didn't have to know what it was going to be used for. All they had to know was somebody was going to pay them.

What brought all these people together was an enormously complex structure of prices - the price of graphite, the price of lumber, the price of rubber, the wages paid to the laborer, and so on. It's a marvelous example of how you can get a complex structure of cooperation and coordination which no individual planned.

There was nobody who sat in a central office and sent an order out to Malaysia: 'Produce more rubber.' It was the market that coordinated all of this without anybody having to know all of the people involved.

Now, think about how a tractor-trailer is manufactured and you begin to understand the futility in getting a centralized agency to effectively and efficiently plan an economy, in addition to how the lack of a free market driven by price differentials and incentives would also be inadequate. In order to have a society without capitalism, then, people would have to submit to a decrease in their standard of living as no one has the economic incentive to make such things as air conditioners, washing machines, dishwashers, etc. Basically anything that is more of a 'want' than a 'need.'

So, as you can see, in order to pursue egalitarianism, the freedom to act independently in response to economic incentives cannot be permitted to exist, and without this freedom, the net living standards have no vehicle of advancement. You may be able to reach egalitarianism, but in the end you must ask yourself: "Is it worth it?" Rather, I prefer to have a system where there is an equality of opportunity (to advance and/or pursue a way of life that one prefers) and a society in which all individuals are equal under the law (including presidents damnit). Being that I wrote this at about four in the morning, it might not be completely coherent, but I hope it gives you an idea as to why I favor "anarcho-capitalism" over "anarcho-socialism," though I prefer a minimalist form of constitutional democratic republican (not as in the party) government to either of those two.

 

[Rhys]

Without reading everything, my standard answer is always:

Give me a huge government with central control over everything, and I fear the wrong leader with my life.

Give me the smallest government the Founders could think up, and who's in control is the people. The all-terrible enemy to the left, the rich... can not execute power without force. Money is one thing, but in a rich society you get songs like "you can take this job and shove it I aint workin' here no more." In a socialist society, you are told where to work to make you most productive.

In a free society, you own your self and work for your own benefit. You will not chose things which do not benefit you, without a consequence. When control is central, those people who do not chose well but are still in power (Bush) can ruin your life with their consequences.

The ONLY humane form of economics is void of government. Sure, one man will be wealthier than another, but at least the poorer man can save his money and work hard.

In our current system, the poorer man can not save his money. The money vanishes into thin air, bombs, government cheese and other stuff.

In South America, no one is free to chose because no one has money. This did not come about from free markets. If there were free markets, people would not chose to have their land raped by multi-nationals for pennies on the dollar. Now, they're dependent on food aid and shit. That's no good.

What's more, the mega establishment cooperation that leftists fear are ONLY possibly because of leftist leaning governments. Special protection and incentives are provided to large companies. Haliburton, Blackwater, General Electric, DOW... these companies get big because of government.

Big oil gets subsidies. So do big farms. Small oil, competing energy, small farms? lol no competition is possible because the government is using it's central control to provide price fixing to these companies. Some farms get paid to NOT grow... that's one way government stops the free markets from lowering prices and making everyone more wealthy.

Another way is the EPA, FCC, FAA and on and on and ABC. You can't be a TV station without permission, you can't fly somewhere, or drill somewhere, or build somewhere. How can prices come down and production go up, and living conditions increase, if the government is always stopping you.

Someone link to the article called "Everything I want to do is Illegal"?

Another way is tax incentives. If you do this thing here, we'll let you keep YOUR money, but if you do this thing here, you give us YOUR money. Therefor, the government decides what you do.

Last off the top of my head is interest rates and money supply. When the spend a bazillion dollars on cheese for the poor, they make people poor and need cheese from the government by driving down the ability of people to purchase. Forget money... people work harder for less when the government buys their cheese and medicine. If that's why people want socialism... to work harder for less... then cool. Otherwise, it's just being naive to want socialism.

Anyway, this all skews prices. When prices don't reflect value, people value the wrong things. War and oil become important, not because it's valuable to the market by itself, but because government protects it's use, supply and demand. Oil is dirty and could have been replaces by the free market 40 years ago.

So you might say, all this sounds very anarcho.... well that's where Ron Paul and the constitution comes in.

The Constitution provides powers to the Federal government, and then everything else to the states or the person. The Court protects those rights. The Constitution is very clearly a document set up to restrict government enchroachment into the States of the Union, and the person. The government does not regulate people, it protects their rights.

Anyway, that's the theory. If you can't afford to get sued, you wont suck. The rest is in the constitution. Basically, we're even saying that can change if you follow the law.

We're mostly about the Rule of Law... that's two fold. We are for the Rule of Law, and the Law agrees with us ideologically.

 

[Rhys]

ignore this

:::::this was an exact duplicate of my above post. i hit refresh or something. sorry

 

[Truth Warrior]

The statists don't like it. They cling to their 6,000 year history on the road to no where.

 

[Thomas_Paine]

Hello,

I would like to know what Ron Paul Supporters think of Anarchy.

I'm not talking about the Anarchy sung in bad music nor the Anarchy delivered by a bullet, but, rather, the Anarchy of Emma Goldman, Noam Chomsky, and Peter Kropotkin. The Anarchy of the Spanish CNT.

In a capitalist society, money has power. It can be used to grant power disproportionately to individuals, or rob others of their power. With unequal power distribution you cannot have maximum individual liberty. One of Ron Paul's central themes is that of individual liberty. How do you resolve this conflict?

Ron Paul represents many Anarcho-Capitalistic ideas. What makes you perfer Anarcho-Capitalism to traditional Anarcho-Socialism.

Lastly, how do you justify the ownership of property while promulgating individual liberty? Does not the ownership of property inheritly give rise to misers whom breed tyrants?

I very much look forward to hearing your thoughts.

-Terryphi

I really like this troll

Your version of anarchy is devoid of individual liberty.

You confuse Capitalism with Corporatism.

The right to private property stems from self-ownership. You simply can not have one without the other. How can I be free as an individual and not have the right own property? Tyrants spring from governments which respect neither Private Property nor Individual Liberty. If you can find an example of what you speak of (private property giving rise to tyrants) please cite you example.

I look forward to your response to the points I have made.

 

[Truth Warrior]

What Is Anarchy?
by Butler Shaffer
http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/ebook/60.html