Wealth Inequality

[moda0306]

For the record, there are various degrees of anarchy, with a solid portion calling for the end of any type of government whatsoever... Not even judges or police.

Seems to me that for the purposes of our debates, we use that definition.  Otherwise we're just talking about degrees of statism again.

I think it's a bit more pure anyway.

[doodle]

So the United States disbands into 100's of city states like ancient Greece. But within those city states you will still have a power structure emerge. If want to live according to the precepts of anarchy, you must leave society. Society and anarchy cannot coexist.

It's clear you still don't understand what anarchy is.  Anarchy doesn't mean there would be no rules, laws, regulations, arbitrators, courts, or police only that society is organized and distributes scarce resources through voluntary means instead of coercion.  Since self-interest of the proletariant is far more "just" than that of a small minority of ruling elites, society would become more fair and just.  It is the ultimate form of democracy and further decentralization of statist institutions (i.e. Bitcoins) only serves to strengthen it.

Totally disagree. Or at least to the degree that saying all those government functions you mention aren't forms of coercion.  A police force, by its very nature, has to coerce people. Now some do that in ways that are recognized as "fair" and "just" more than others, but eventually they have to pull out the gun and arrest someone.

Somehow these people have to also get paid for what they do, and because there's often common benefit, it's hard to charge people a user fee... So you have to tax... Taxes are coercion and confiscation at the point of a gun. I don't care how small the community is...

Libertarians can't have it both ways.  You can't call for perfect individual sovereignty when the government tries to do some things, and then call for government to coerce me in some way that you find agreeable.

"Allocating scarce resources through voluntary means" is also real muddled when we can't even agree whose resources are whose in the first place.  In reality, a good majority of our resources aren't sovereign to any individual in the first place, and so your society depends on massive value judgements from the get go.

So if we're talking about full blown anarchy, we can't have public police or public roads or even private property as we know it today. Anything that involves my neighbors making decisions about how I move about the countryside, charge me fees for common services, puts concrete pathways put in front of me that I must cross a certain way and help pay for, etc, is statism of one degree or another. It's just statism that is palatable for your priorities and biases. Some people might rather have universal healthcare than police to help them defend "their" property.

Exactly. I just can't frankly wrap my head around what kind of realistic society anarchists are envisioning. A police force and court system without coercion? How exactly does that work?

[Pointedstick]

So if we're talking about full blown anarchy, we can't have public police or public roads or even private property as we know it today. Anything that involves my neighbors making decisions about how I move about the countryside, charge me fees for common services, puts concrete pathways put in front of me that I must cross a certain way and help pay for, etc, is statism of one degree or another. It's just statism that is palatable for your priorities and biases. Some people might rather have universal healthcare than police to help them defend "their" property.

(still working on the private society post)

I think what's likely to happen is that an anarchic society would eventually develop multiple competing "contractual governments." It's an undeniably useful feature of a management entity that it prevent my neighbor from building a concrete wall in front of my driveway. Right now government does that… but it also prevents me from building a concrete wall in my own back yard without paying triple the price of the wall in permits and waiting weeks just to get approved.

What's needed is an entity that can prevent "bads" without inhibit "goods." Of course, each person has a different definition of bad and good. This is why majority government fails; nobody winds up happy. And what's bad or good can change overnight in response to new laws. Something you did yesterday may be illegal today.

The problem is that since neither you nor anyone else has an explicit contract with government, you can never know what to expect from it. Maybe one day you'll wake up and discover that alcohol is illegal and you're a criminal for having a couple of wine bottles. Or that the antique pistol you grandfather gave you 3 years ago is now a banned weapon an yo're a criminal for having it in a closet. Or that your property taxes are now higher than your mortgage payments (true story, happened to my parents in case you're skeptical). Or that the perfectly safe addition to your house is no longer "up to code" and has to be needlessly re-done just to get permission to fix a minor problem.

What I envision is government-like entities that serve many of the same functions of building infrastructure, providing security, and resolving disputes, but with two very important differences:

1. there are more than one of them and they compete with one another for customers.
2. You have an explicit contract specifying how much you pay for their services and what they can or cannot do to you.

That solves the problem of rising taxes because your contract specifies what the cost is. It also solves the problem of regulatory uncertainty because they can't change the rules on you without renegotiating the contract, which gives you the opportunity to say no and break the contract without penalty. People who want to live in service-rich communities can choose providers who charge a lot but provide excellent infrastructure and landscaping, round-the-clock security patrols, and so on and so forth.

To a certain extent, this is how municipalities already work today, but since again you have no explicit contract, you have no guarantee that the city or county will hold up their end of the bargain. The attractiveness of mobility is also limited by the presence of larger state and federal governments whose rules are harder to geographically escape from and who you have even less personal input with. And you still have no contract with them.

[Kshartle]

The entire concept of anarchy simply means human interactions are based on mutual benefit and are voluntary. Negotiation to win-win situations is the way things will will work rather than violence. Yes, it's very difficult to imagine because humans are still very barbaric and we are indoctrinated almost from birth to worship the state. It's mind-boggling for people to concieve of a world where they are free from the control of a centralized coercive group of individuals with all the weapons and cages.

We don't need to figure out how the roads will get paved. We might figure out that we don't even want roads. We don't need to figure out how the cotton will be picked. It's enough to say that slavery is immoral and we won't support it.

None of this is going to happen anytime soon so don't worry about it. It can be fun to figure out how humans will solve the problems of their daily lives voluntarily but honestly we aren't equipped for it. It will take future generations that are raised in non-violent households who learn to negotiate rather than hit. We need adults who were raised not to fear authority but to reject the very concept of monopolies of violence.

It's a long way off but it's inevitable as long as humans that fancy themselves a government don't blow us all up first. If it's morally correct that people are better off when they trade and negotiate rather than point guns then that method of problem solving will eventually be the dominate one.

It won't be utopia but it will be a heck of a lot better! Imagine no taxes, no inflation, no war, no wage and price controls, no restrictions on what services and products you can supply or purchase. I know it's a scary concept in this statist world. We've all been Shawshanked and we look at the walls as our little castle. It is our prison.

Ohhh yeah, imagine flying on a plane without getting groped first.

[Libertarian666]

For a pretty good picture of what a voluntary society would look like, read what is probably my favorite sci-fi book of all time, and certainly in the top 10:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

[moda0306]

PS,

But if our federal government disbands, and my "private society region" decides to build its own government, shouldn't I be able to secede as an individual household?  If I can't, my only choice is to move out.  That doesn't sound like freedom to me.  It sounds more like you're simply saying that we'll have what you deem to be a society better built for people to pick their poison, essentially, and that this will lead to more fair results.

I can't argue with that as a possibility, but it's still coercion, because I have to move if I don't like my town. And really, even if all we had was 100% federal government power, we'd still have 180-or-so other choices in the form of other countries to move to.  It seems that even when you have 180 countries to choose from we still don't feel very free or happy (or at least some don't).  What make us think taking one of those countries and splitting it up into municipalities will lead to just a bunch of coercive local governments enacting tyranny of the majority.  If 180 options aren't enough, and we think the proper sovereign state is much smaller, who's to say that individuals or neighborhoods shouldn't be able to split into their own independent municipalities?

Based on the history of local and state governments and what they've done to push tyranny of the majority in horrible ways, I really don't have much confidence that they're much better than a federal bureaucracy.

Further, all the libertarian posts here act like resource allocation is just a given, and isn't more of a quasi-function of government.  This is what really rubs me.  First, we really don't rid ourselves of coercion, we just chop it up into smaller pieces thinking that it will deliver more palatable confiscation and/or coercion, then we act like resources that we claim to be ours just are.  If someone walks onto "my land" I can shoot him.  If someone tries to swim in "my lake," I can drown him.  If someone tries to climb "my mountain" or drill for "my oil" or occupy "my beach".... well you see where this all goes.  It's all a big joke. 

Simply put, private property in its current form is essentially a function of the state.  From a purely natural point of view, some sort of dwelling being private and sovereign to an individual makes sense.  Owning vast sums of acreage, having mining or drilling "rights," having control over a giant body of water, etc...  This is all a myth initially perpetuated by governments who wanted to please voters and/or plutocrats.  Is it also a tremendously useful tool that makes great use of our resources?  Yes, but so are freeways.  It's all coercion and greed (or, from another angle, a useful social engineering tool) shrouded in liberty and "natural rights."  So essentially what private property turns into is a might-makes-right situation where those with enough guns and strategic position to make property theirs are the winners by default.  It's hard to have free interactions when you have land you can't cross or harvest, water you can't drink or swim in, and are forced to abide by someone else's idea of whose property you are using... but for those with plenty of deeds, that's a non-issue. You're properly stocked with economic bargaining power.

So this is why I tend to view attacks on "statists" (aka, anyone who wants the government other than the one you'd want) as a bit nausiating.  It's a way to not have to acknowledge or seek to understand complex operational realities of how society works, or that perfectindividual liberty when we're all having to share this island called Earth is a bit of a myth.  It's a way to make anyone in favor of industry regulation and a social safety net similar in moral standing to Hitler or Mao, and the freedom-loving libertarians as victimized heros who just want to be left alone when we really just envision two different forms of coercion.  I won't take the philosophy seriously until there is a similar rejection to local governments and ridiculous extensions of the principal of private property.  The withholding of vital resources from people in exchange for services is coercive by nature. 

[Pointedstick]

Further, all the libertarian posts here act like resource allocation is just a given, and isn't more of a quasi-function of government.  This is what really rubs me.  First, we really don't rid ourselves of coercion, we just chop it up into smaller pieces thinking that it will deliver more palatable confiscation and/or coercion, then we act like resources that we claim to be ours just are.  If someone walks onto "my land" I can shoot him.  If someone tries to swim in "my lake," I can drown him.  If someone tries to climb "my mountain" or drill for "my oil" or occupy "my beach".... well you see where this all goes.  It's all a big joke. 

Unlike most libertarians or anarchists, I do not view a world without violence as possible. It's just who we are as humans. So yes, someone walks onto your land without your permission and you can shoot him… today. In Minnesota. And if you don't want to get your hands dirty, you can call the police and they'll shoot him if he won't leave or escalates to threatening you/them.

If it turns out that he's just a harmless teenager and you overreacted, today the police will take you away and put you in a small box for some number of years after subjecting you to a humiliating and time-consuming a process that drains your financial assets. Maybe they'll even kill you, either on the spot, or after another decade spent in a small box in a place called "death row". Most governments around the world will probably kill you in some way.

In a private society, maybe everyone who you know will stop having anything to do with you and your trading partners (employer, bank, etc) will refuse your business. Maybe your angry neighbors might force you to sell your house and leave the neighborhood at gunpoint. Maybe the parents of the dead teenager will do it. Maybe they'll kill you. Maybe they'll hire goons to put you in a small box for some number of years after subjecting you to a humiliating and time-consuming a process that drains your financial assets.

In the end, might always makes right. It may be uncomfortable to admit, but all human societies are based on this premise. What we're arguing over is who has the ultimate right to use might: a small group of humans called the government, or all the humans generally.

I tend to take a dim view of supposed elites, which is why I prefer that might be distributed throughout society. Incidentally enough, this is the very thing that government works hardest to curtail.

So who should have the might? Us? Or our supposed betters? That's what it all boils down to.

[moda0306]

PS,

If in the end might makes right, whether we're talking about a brutal dictatorship, "free society," or somewhere in between, I'd say the one where the might is used to create the best mix of fair, productive, and equitable results, which is probably some mix between full blown anarchy and totalitarian state.  It seems to me that if one ounce of coercion can facilitate 3 lbs of productivity and innovation and 2 lbs of financial security, and can prevent a few ounces of "private" coercion to boot (crime, etc) you end up with a pretty decent balance.

[doodle]

Moda,

I dont think this particular belief system can be reasoned with. It is a religion that is not based on reality...as humans exist today. (With genetic modifications to our DNA however, I will say that the plausibility of their system increases)

Everything in our universe is goverened by laws....most of them imposed by nature. No matter how onerous I might find it, I have to live with the limitation that gravity has on my freedom to float. A universe without laws would be as unlivable as a society without laws. The anarchist position challenges the idea that a society must have laws. Because, if you have laws they must be enforced when broken (or there are no laws) and that enforcement requires coercion. Without laws, then ultimately might = right which is a devolved state of existence if you ask me.

Im going to go out on a limb and make the claim that anarchists are actually control freaks. They want control over things that dont belong to them. While that seems like a total contradiction of terms, it becomes clearer when one looks at the Stoic idea of control which ultimately extends only to our own judgements.

I like the story of Diogenes the Cynic, who although he lived in a barrel was considered so powerful that even a world conqueror like Alexander the Great admired him. Diogenes was powerful because you could not control him. Like Socrates, he realized that even his own life was ultimately not under his control and therefore nothing could be done to him to take away his freedom of judgement which truly was the only thing he had freedom over.

In todays world where man considers him master of the universe, this position seems absurd. Ultimately though, it is very PP. We dont know the future, let alone have control over it. We can do nothing other than to prepare ourselves in a fashion that recognizes that while we have total freedom over our judgements, they might be mistaken.

I think the first chapter of Epictetus manual "The Enchiridion" does a good job of clarifying and defining control and freedom.

The Enchiridion

By Epictetus

Written 135 A.C.E.

Translated by Elizabeth Carter

1. Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed.

Aiming therefore at such great things, remember that you must not allow yourself to be carried, even with a slight tendency, towards the attainment of lesser things. Instead, you must entirely quit some things and for the present postpone the rest. But if you would both have these great things, along with power and riches, then you will not gain even the latter, because you aim at the former too: but you will absolutely fail of the former, by which alone happiness and freedom are achieved.

Work, therefore to be able to say to every harsh appearance, "You are but an appearance, and not absolutely the thing you appear to be." And then examine it by those rules which you have, and first, and chiefly, by this: whether it concerns the things which are in our own control, or those which are not; and, if it concerns anything not in our control, be prepared to say that it is nothing to you.

[doodle]

I think this sums up pretty well the problems with anarchy...

1. Anarchy does not work well because only the fittest and cleverest survive, and the rest are generally left to their own devices and subjugated by the strong and willful.  Thus, it is a terrible system for the weak, the sick, the disabled or the less clever and less intelligent people.  There is no protection for them, so they are generally exploited horribly, and often just killed off.  This often includes the women and children, who are more dependent and less strong.

2. Also, anarchy does not support commerce, which is needed to supply humans with all the food, shelter and goods and services they need.  One problem is there is no monetary system in a an anarchic society, so “anything goes”?, and barter is the main method of commerce.  This is very cumbersome and discussed in a separate article, Basic Banking.

3. Anarchy also does not support industry or agriculture, which depend upon laws such as private property rights, and laws against stealing and damaging the property of others.  Without such laws, few would want to undertake any kind of business or farming, even, since they know it can be stolen or destroyed by anyone at any time, without any consequences.

4. It is also not a good system for anyone that wishes to develop spiritually, which is the goal of humanity, always.  The reason for this is it is too unstable and insecure.  People need some security and safety from maurauders, thieves, rapists, murderers and other malcontents.

[doodle]

Just watched a history channel show on Deadwood, South Dakota. That was a pretty lawless town....yet it didnt seem like a very pleasant place to live. There was plenty of money in the town from gold, but open sewage and gun fights in the streets....

[stone]

What I can't help thinking about full on Libertarians is that there are areas of the World now that are effectively free of government. You could sell up in the USA or Europe or wherever and move to Somalia with a bag of USD. You and your wealth could then enjoy unfettered freedom to prosper. Off you go, take care and may the force be with you .

[moda0306]

What I can't help thinking about full on Libertarians is that there are areas of the World now that are effectively free of government. You could sell up in the USA or Europe or wherever and move to Somalia with a bag of USD. You and your wealth could then enjoy unfettered freedom to prosper. Off you go, take care and may the force be with you .

Though I usually dislike, "If you don't like it, get the hell out" types of rhetoric, when you deal with extremes of thought that tend to have more ridiculous accusations about what they're going through (either a poor liberal, or rich libertarian claiming to be a slave), then it gets a bit easier to say, "Hey look, there's a land that is exactly as you like it.  Please proceed."

[moda0306]

What I can't help thinking about full on Libertarians is that there are areas of the World now that are effectively free of government. You could sell up in the USA or Europe or wherever and move to Somalia with a bag of USD. You and your wealth could then enjoy unfettered freedom to prosper. Off you go, take care and may the force be with you .

free of government doesn't exist if they are under mob rule or tyranny from warlords or crime-lords, those are forms of government and very un-libertarian ones at that. i wonder how libertarians are so completely failing to explain the nature of government or the benefits of limited government among rational and self governing men, whenever Somalia and other hell holes get put up as a example of a libertarian ideal... .

Simon,
I think we know that libertarians wouldn't prefer criminal rule... we're just pointing out that this can very well be a very natural result in a power vacuum.  The thing is in a libertarian fantasy land, you can only control yourself.  If you count any criminal or mobster class that arises as "government" then that kind of automatically disarms any argument as to what the unintended consequences of no government could be.  It's like if I were to say that some hippie ideal government "had a perfectly fair and well-run nationalized healthcare system," and you said "but what if it's horribly run," and my response was "no, you didn't hear me... I said it would be perfectly-run."

See what I mean?  Because you're not only NOT the dictator, but you are specifically setting up this society to have no coercion, you can't control other people.  What people like myself wonder is "what types of violence will this power-vacuum create as an unwelcome side-effect?"  I have no doubt that if a lot of the members of this board moved to an island that they could form a very respectful private society, but I'd still argue that there'd be faint hints of coercion and control, and what if other people who are less civilized want to move to the island?  Who are you to say no?  Where do lines get drawn?

And I think most of us value "limited government."  The problem is defining it and deciding where the line should be drawn in various aspects of public or private life.  But when some libertarians take a fundamental moral stand and say that anyone but them is a slave-driver, I think we have to carry on this argument at what may appear to be a bit more ludacris level (arguing about the uber-extremes of anarchy, moving to Somalia, or discussing whether we have a right to take ownership of natural resources).

I argue with libertarians so feverishly because of how pure and simple their philosophy is... you can't argue with Dem's or Republicans because they have no fundamental pillars to identify and break down.  They're just "for this" and "against that" based on fly-by-night moral equations that they were taught by their parents.  I also think the Green Party would be one that would be a true joy to debate.  Their premise is so sound that you can actually break it down and pick it apart.  In fact, some of my favorite political thinkers appear to be a mix of libertarian and environmetalist... I think they have some good core beliefs and truths that drive them that I feel make discussion 10x more interesting than the average person.

I fully believe that we absolutely have to start our thought process with the ultimate sovereignty of the individual.  Everything is so much more beautifully thought out when you do. But we're all on this big rock together, with all its natural laws and limited resources.  Unfettered liberty was impossible when we were born on this rock that we can't get off of and have to share the resources from with others.  I think we need to simply find the best tools for managing that non-freedom rather than fighting it tooth and nail, to make things as productive, fair, and prosperous as possible for all of us, we can hope to achieve HB's "90% Free" standard .  Strive for pure freedom on this rock, and you may realize that natural laws and a lack of efficient delivery systems of the things that keep us safe and healthy could find us battling nature and each other 10x more than the "battle" of putting up with taxes, regulations, blue laws, public transportation, and inflation.

there is no doubt a continuing and ongoing battle against human nature and human weakness, but the same criminality takes over in a environment of total control as the criminality that happens in a power vacuum. To me the question is often between creating dependance on thugs and engaging in expansions of government that promotes and creates need for that dependance, or choosing to work toward making the need for government grow smaller and the promotion of a rational private society (i had the same example in mind of the forum members here on an island) the impossible ideal may very well be impossible but it still needs to be put forth as the ideal to work towards, the problem with libertarian ideals is the same as the problem with totalitarian/statist ones... human nature.... but of the two only the libertarian ideal seems to come with the necessary self corrective features built in to adapt and potentially overcome it.

[Pointedstick]

Somalia is as much the natural result of anarchy as North Korea is the result of socialism.  I assume moderate social democrats are rightly annoyed with chest-beating right-wingers say, "yeah, well if you love your government so much why don't you live in a North Korean gulag!!!1!!one"

[stone]

Simon and moda, I read what both of you wrote and agreed with every word even though you were sort of putting up counter arguments to each other. Basically we all seem to be saying that we need to recognize that just because we need government to do enough (eg to stop people cutting each others' throats) doesn't mean that we can't have too much of a good thing and perhaps in someways already have.
A while back Lone Wolf commented on here about "War Before Civilization". I guess without government we tend to live as warring tribes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization

[stone]

Somalia is as much the natural result of anarchy as North Korea is the result of socialism.  I assume moderate social democrats are rightly annoyed with chest-beating right-wingers say, "yeah, well if you love your government so much why don't you live in a North Korean gulag!!!1!!one"

I guess North Korea is an end point for socialism taken as far as it can go. As always the best is somewhere in the middle and most of all basically people being nice to each other. Some systems make it more likely that people will find it easy to be nice but when it comes to the crunch, that is what really matters.