A question for Chris and/or Doug

[Bandalero]

Besides, an anarchic state would be inherently unstable. It would be wide open for any power-hungry dude with a militia to come in and take over.

Prove it. Show me how. Give me a hypothetical situation where this is possible.

And, if not that, it would become the ultimate capitalist state, with giant corporations running the country in everything but name.

Again, show me how this is possible.

ok, here's a true story, the King Ranch that is so beloved by TexAns and is so famous through out the world was built by what Doug is saying here.

Richard King had a small army of gunmen that would find land owners and kill them. these men sometimes were not even in the ground yet, when Richard king would go to the widdow and offer pennies on the dollar for her husband's land. back in this time it was the man's duty to buy, sell land, so it was the man who knew what the value of the land was, how much it could be sold for and it was his duty to do any business that had anything to do with the land. this new widdow does not know what the value of the land is, she doesn't know how to sell it, she's still grieving over the sudden loss of her husband so she's not thinking straight. so she gets jobbed over by king and the land is sold for pennies on the dollar.

so think about it in this current "what if" situation, you have a man (mr. jones) with an army, and a water plant. any other guy (mr. smith) with an army can just as easily kill Jones off. without jones around jones' army disbands in the confusion, because surely jones' name was on the checks, and since he's gone, the assumption is that the checks will be too. this leaves a few army personel left to defend the plant, and mrs. jones. mrs. jones might not fully understand how the run the company, much less how to defend her plant. her children have been around the plant all their lives, and because they were around the plant growing up they don't want anything to do with the plant, they've become farmers, or bankers or something. no one around mrs. jones fully understands just what the hell is going on. then mr. smith's army comes in and kills everyone on the plant property. because mr. smith COULD pay off the widdow for pennies on the dollar like Richard King, but it;'s much cheeper to buy bullets for his amry then give mrs. jones a check.

the words "hostile takeover" have a brand new meaning now. under anarchy, this situation will play out several times. warlords will be fighting themselves in the streets to defend and conquer new lands, new utilities, and new facilities. warlords create war, and war is something you do not support. you do not like the use of force and the fact that wars are being waged for no real aparant reason, yet under this idea, there will be nothing but war. yes, you would not do such things, but others will.

darwinism has been thrown out the window. the strongest don't surrvive anymore, not when the 90 pound weakling can push a button and destroy all the strongest men in the world. technology, greed, and money makes the world go around, i would rather government have all three then 90 pound warlords killing each other in an effort to try and gain all three.

[doug]

Philosophy and religion are cousins in that neither is provable. You can prove without a doubt a mathematical theorem. You cannot prove a philosophy, as it rests on arbitrary premises. I.e. your philosophy rests on the premise that force is wrong. That's a value judgment and not provable.

I can prove that natural law is an axiom.

I've read some of the articles you've linked and looked at the free state project site. From what I've seen, these articles focus on minutiae, not the big picture, and even that unconvincingly. For instance, from a Bob Murphy article:

He is actually saying that every time you leave your property, you would have to sign a contract saying "I won't kill; I won't steal; I won't do blah-blah-blah, at this mall/drug store/arcade/school/park/street corner/place of business/etc. or else I agree to be prosecuted." Now, this would work, of course, but it would be extremely tedious, especially given that you'd have to read every contract very carefully to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. And we have a system like that anyway; we just centralize it and call it government.

I reccommend you send Bob an email with your concerns - he's far better qualified to defend his system then i am.

I don't think you would need to sign a new contract every time you leave your house. Lifetime deals would probably be set up. But again, ask Bob, he'll tell you for sure.

It's happened a thousand times in history, wherein a populace is unhappy with the current situation and unites under new leadership, overthrowing the old system. There would be many that would be unhappy in an anarchist society: those who can't get work and have no recourse for unemployment benefits, those who can't pay for their medical bills, those who can't work because of disability, those who can't get hired because of the prejudices of the large company owners.

How do you know that there would be no jobs? How do you know there would be overflowing legions of poor? What gives you this idea? Where do you get this stuff?

Here's the ECONOMIC LAWS laid out one more time.

Less regulation = MORE PROFIT
More profit = MORE firms entering the market
More firms = more competition for workers, for consumers, for better product quality
Competition = better wages for said workers, MORE JOBS, lower prices for said consumers, better products.

I am not making this up. I will be happy to demonstrate this economic LAW for you with a model if need be.

In comes some would-be politician who says, "Hey, this system sucks, I'll offer you all a better life!" They unite under him or her, and a new government is set up. The anarchists would fight back, of course, but with no centralized military to defend itself it would be extremely difficult. It would be even more difficult if a neighboring country with a well-developed military decided they wanted the anarchists' resources and moved to take over.

First of all, Bob covers private defense, but even without an anarchist military you would still have to kill EVERY man woman and capable child in order to conquer a country.

Look how successful the US army has been in iraq with that so far. Since the bombs stopped falling i'd say the iraqi's have a leg up on you.

Anarchists take the whole "LIVE FREE OR DIE" thing pretty seriously. If somebody tried to invade a free civil society it would be a lot different from nation vs nation wars.

We don't ask soldiers to "defend" us. We do it ourselves.

In an anarchist society, money is the only law. So say there's a successful private police company. They're really good at what they do, so a lot of people hire them. They buy out all the local competition, and pretty soon, they're the only police in a very big area. They're making tons of money. So they start buying up more and more property and buy out other industries. Pretty soon, everything in the area is owned by this one giant conglomerate, and they can set their own rules and their own prices for everything in the area. And even if people, fed up with the unfair rules of this corporation, decided to give up their lives and their jobs and move elsewhere, they'd only find themselves in the grip of another giant conglomerate. Hardly sounds like "freedom" to me.

More profit = more firms. If Police Company X was making a billion dollar profit, greedy capitalists would certainly want a piece of that. More profit = more firms. More profit = more firms.

What happens when an industry in an unregulated market generates profit?

More firms enter the market place.

So in conclusion, more profit leads to more firms.

Even if company X bought out all other private defense firms in an area, how would they control people's homes or control other industries? Would you sell them the land you live on and then turn around and rent it from them?

Most primate species, including chimpanzees, our closest relatives, live under "governed" conditions. There is a leader of the pack who controls the others by force, and things only change when s/he is challenged and overthrown by another pack leader. Anthropologists agree that this is probably how our ancestors lived too, and from the dawn of recorded history we find nothing but governed societies. If "natural law" were consistent with "human nature", government would have been created by humans, it wouldn't have evolved with us.

So we disagree. Human nature is impossible to prove. I can provide hundreds of examples of free clans in human history, but this is a point where there's nothing to debate; it's all subjective.

But you cannot expect, as an individual, to say to the government under which you currently live: "Hey! I don't like your rules! Leave me alone!"and get results, because the government owns the land you live on; it has created the systems that supply it and protect it, and it will effectively say, "Tough!"

How does the government own my land? Because they say so? Can you show me how they came to own it by right or by merit? I say I own it, I paid for it and i take care of it. What claim do they have, exactly?

They would, just not in the same way. The way our society is set up, everyone has access to a free education, which in turn helps prepare people for a lucrative career. But in anarchy, only the upper class could afford to send their children to school, effectively creating a very wide class gulf between the educated "aristocracy", and the poor who stay poor and uneducated indefinately. And yes, our current system is somewhat similar, with inner city schools being shitty and all, but at least a system is there and we are trying to improve it.

Every service would be controlled by one "system" or regulating force: the free market. Therefore, if one school made a boatload of money, then what would we have?

Profits. What happens when we have profits?

More firms. What happens with more firms?

Lower prices.

Compare schools to cars. There will be $150,000 Porsches, sure, but there will also be $11,000 Hyundai's.

Healthcare, for another example. I've read in some anarchist manifesto somewhere that anarchy is the only system that would honor a person's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Except, it would seem that a person only has a right to live if they can afford it. Even in America, with its privatized healthcare, we do have state health insurance, and social security to help the elderly and disabled. Other countries have it even better in regard to public healthcare. But in an anarchist society, if someone needed a heart transplant, he'd better be able to pony up the cash, or he's screwed. This is social darwinism at its most inhumane. I for one would far prefer to live in a system where I know myself and my loved ones can get medical treatment no matter how much we have in the bank.

Again, profit firms competition lower prices.

Heart transplants would be CHEAPER in my world then they are in yours. It's economics. There would still be health insurance, just private health insurance, which would mean the policies would be BETTER.

I believe that there are certain things everyone has a right to, whether they have money or not. Healthcare, education, justice, etc. Most other resources should be and are distributed on a capitalist basis.

And you have no problem stealing money/capital from producers in order to provide these services?

What would happen to your system if all the rich people died, or left? Who would you tax to provide for your poor?

Ah yes, someone's always got to bring up the Holocaust. Of course that's not right; we believe in majority rules, minority rights.

But to get rid of those rights, all you'd need is a majority vote that the minority doesn't need rights. Am i right?

Do you believe majority rules and might makes right are the same thing? If not, how are they different?

Erm, well, that's exactly what's happened a thousand times in history. Look at America's history. A bunch of people got together, fought for their rights, broke away from a system they didn't like, and formed a government on their own property.

And to protect the freedoms they had won they drew up a few things, a declaration of independence and a constitution.

And the second they dropped dead, hateful liberals and big government conservatives started fucking the idea that the founding fathers had birthed.

Answer this question: Is government in today's USA bigger or smaller then the fore fathers' USA? Is this what they wanted?

Me thinks not.

You live on their property (or Canada's property), and thus must follow their rules or get out.

I live on my property, they're the ones who should get out.

Actually, it does. Because you are the one stipulating that coersion is wrong, the rest of us said no such thing.

But it IS coercive. Nobody's arguing agains that, right? You want to endorse violent force to get your way, be my guest, but call it what it is.

Violent, unprovoked force.

I'm not going to cover the social contract because we've been over it before. By definition, i can't enter into a contract by being born, but that doesn't seem to phase supporters of said contract so i'm done harping on it.

Basically, your attitude is "i'm pretty happy with the government and i don't mind that the things i like about it all come from theft and murder, but if Doug wants to be an anarchist more power to him i just wish he would go"

am i right, more or less?

[doug]

Reno, before i can address your story i have to ask:

what stops those same armed thugs from doing that in a governed society?

[doug]

man i used the wrong account again

[nelison]

How would anarchy prevent drunk driving? If someone wanted to drink and drive, no one could stop them since they aren't hurting anyone (at least up until the point that they actually hit someone). I mean, of course drunk driving can and does happen right now, but police are capable of pulling over suspicious drivers. Under an anarchist system it seems like private officers couldn't do anything about it. Would the private enterprise that controls the roads be able to hire police to pull over the driver? And further more, would there even be private roads since nearly 100% of the roads in the world are already in existence and are deemed public?

Sorry that that's somewhat all over the place, but I think you'll understand my train of thought. If not, let me know

[Bandalero]

Reno, before i can address your story i have to ask:

what stops those same armed thugs from doing that in a governed society?

armed forces. (force)

[Narbus]

Narbus, when i said consenting child i meant a boy or girl who is 8 or 9 and old enough now to start making decisions on what he wants. I am afraid you have still not shown me any proof that an 8 year old is incapable of making up his own mind. Yes, he may not always have the best reason for doing so, but unfortunately it's not up to you or me to decide.

When I was young, I wanted to eat candy and watch TV all day. Is that a good decision? Would someone who really had a clear, rational view of the facts make these decisions? No. There are consequences to bad choices. 8 and 9 year olds don't get this. Spend time around them. They are young, their brains are physically not developed enough to do the reasoning. Asking a child to consent to sexual exploitation is like asking someone to build a house with three tacks and a fish. The tools just aren't there to do the work.

[mosaik]

reno, i agree that there is a need for "police" forces. therefore, doesn't it stand to reason that a private police force could be established and called upon to defend property rights?

jim, road owners could make one of the conditions of operating your vehicle on their road remaining sober, with fines and other penalties in place if you don't.

narbus, you said

Is that a good decision? Would someone who really had a clear, rational view of the facts make these decisions? No.

prove it.

[Bandalero]

reno, i agree that there is a need for "police" forces. therefore, doesn't it stand to reason that a private police force could be established and called upon to defend property rights?

yes but what juristiction do they have? even if a police force for hire is raised, who is to say that a wealthier man can raise his own militia, outfit it with bigger guns and better equipment, and crush any oposition. who's to say that the owner of the police for hire won't overstep his duties are a servant to those who have paid for his services and uses his police force to engage in criminal activity.

[Narbus]

prove it.

You are intentionally being retarded here. They're children. They aren't rational. They aren't developed enough to make their own decisions. That's why there's no 5 year old lawyers.
Their brains are tiny. Jesus. Do I honestly have to dig through the APA website just to prove to you what every 11 year old girl who's ever taken a baby-sitting job already knows? Kids aren't able to make these decisions.

[mosaik]

yes but what juristiction do they have? even if a police force for hire is raised, who is to say that a wealthier man can raise his own militia, outfit it with bigger guns and better equipment, and crush any oposition. who's to say that the owner of the police for hire won't overstep his duties are a servant to those who have paid for his services and uses his police force to engage in criminal activity.

what stops the weatherman from doing it today? what stops police corruption today?

[Bandalero]

wealthy men have money they simply buy out who ever owns property they desire, or they go hostile takeover, in which case they still pay money for the transaction. it would not be cost effective to raise an army and crush the oposition, since in the resulting fight, the owner of the property might see his defeat drawing near and he simply sabatoges his land or property.

police corruption is something that isn't wide spread, but it is still around and will always be around. you can only pray that there is a good internal affairs system or a police brutality watchdog group that can keep police fairly honest.