Why Anarchy is morally correct, necessary, and better than a governed society

[Bullettime]

Anarchy might have been able to sustain itself as shown in Iceland in the past but in today's society, it would never work. The world has essentially gone crazy. See the Astrodome I believe it was after Hurricane Katrina. That's anarchy in the modern world.

[Castel]

"Well what about courts! For crimes such as murder, theft, or fraud!" Privately run courts would exist, where the defendants and prosecutors would mutually agree to attend, so as to deter corruption. There could be 1 juror or 100, based on a voluntary or salary system. It may not be the absolute perfect system, but is our current one better? Just look at some of the corruption that is going on!

And what laws would these courts be arbitrating in a lawless anarchy? If laws are created by some group, how is that different than a government? What if you can't afford a trial? What are the enforcement mechanisms to make sure that the judge and jury are fair and impartial? What if a volunteer jurist is someone with a grudge against you? Who would pay the "salary" of a paid jurist? What if a jurist doesn't need the pens you make but the other guy can afford to give him 100 chickens? What if the other party in your trial is some huge corporation that dumped poisonous chemicals into your water supply? Who decides what constitutes fair environmental laws (assuming that your lawless society would have environmental laws)? How do you, with no science background, go about proving that your goats are dead because of something this company dumped into the ground?

And yes, I read your entire post.

[Powerogue]

It'd help certain things, but sustaining it would be difficult. Keeping order in particular would be difficult without a policing force, and that requires someone in charge of that police force, who could take over and make it a dictatorship if there weren't checks to keep him from doing so...

It's impractical in the long term, but I see what you're saying about how it'd cut a lot of wastefulness in getting things done.

[Yizelin]

OP, if I completely disregard any of my own knowledge on the subject and use what you say as law in this thread... you still have to understand that people accustomed to a certain way of things will not likely be enthused about having their world thrown around even if it yields positive results in the long run. If a culture springs up and takes up this way of thinking and governing, then it may be sustainable to a point. However, with the way of things in this world as it is there is no feasible way to get people to buy into it. All it takes is a small resistance to your cause if they have any real power, and then it'll turn for the worse.

Many MANY types of governing are great in theory, on paper, or in your mind with a limited world view but in order to get it established there would likely be many concessions made (in order to actually attain a high level of buy-in) that would run counter to the underlying belief systems that back the idea. The biggest things that come into play have been listed out all over this thread by replies. Take everyone that's posted in this thread and increase their representation exponentially (including yourself) and then imagine trying to establish this style of governing while meeting this proportional resistance. Good idea? Maybe. Feasible? So very unlikely.

[OrcsRLame]

You know, I'm just a 20 year old middle class American with limited life experience, but this is my take on this subject. I like government, and this is why.

I've never been in a serious fight in my life. I've never had a gun pointed at me. I've never had a tank roll down my street and blow up part of my neighborhood. I've never had anything stolen from me. I have been free to do what I want for my entire life.

None of that is guaranteed to still be true after a governmental upheaval of any kind. My life has been very peaceful, and I like that. It's nice to know that I don't have to fight for my life and my possessions every day.

[Duravian]

You're assuming everyone would turn into carebears.... that would not be the case in an anarchist state.

---------- Post added 2012-04-13 at 11:34 PM ----------

If you're going to make an argument of anarchism being a ruthless dog-eat dog world that the "OP" wouldn't last a day in, do not even post, as you obviously didn't read the initial thread, and cannot make up a reasonable argument. You have been brain washed through propaganda to believe in government, and anyone saying otherwise, in your minds, is a fool. Anarchism is rare throughout history, and there is NO way that you could know it would fail.

Who are you trying to kid? Yourself, that's who. Anarchy will never work, it's extremely idealistic, to the point that it can only ever exist in fiction.

[JSG31494]

You know, I'm just a 20 year old middle class American with limited life experience, but this is my take on this subject. I like government, and this is why.

I've never been in a serious fight in my life. I've never had a gun pointed at me. I've never had a tank roll down my street and blow up part of my neighborhood. I've never had anything stolen from me. I have been free to do what I want for my entire life.

None of that is guaranteed to still be true after a governmental upheaval of any kind. My life has been very peaceful, and I like that. It's nice to know that I don't have to fight for my life and my possessions every day.

But, good sir, you have a gun pointed at your head every day. Every time you pay a tax, there is a gun at your head robbing you. You are not free, assuming you're in some nation of some sort. If you don't pay your taxes, you get a court date, if you don't show up, police go to your house and apprehend you, if you defend yourself, you are gunned down. Also, you are not free to do what you want in your everyday life. In the U.S., for example, you may not, under federal law, smoke marijuana, engage in prostitution, use any currency other than Federal Reserve Notes as legal tender, and the list goes on. Unless you have self-established yourself on Antarctica, some cay in the Caribbean, or live outside of Earth's atmosphere, you are not, never have been, and most likely, never will be free. I cannot believe the amount of submission people give to the government. Government has not ever helped you in any way, because it encourages us to make immoral decisions on the basis that there is some sort of enforced correction to be made. You won't teach your kids that killing is immoral because they'll find out through media, school or a cop themselves that violence is punishable. We have no need to teach children morals with a statist society, because they will just be corrected later on, as opposed to the ideal anarcho-capitalist society, where immoral behavior is prevented, rather than corrected.

[Duravian]

But, good sir, you have a gun pointed at your head every day. Every time you pay a tax, there is a gun at your head robbing you.

Sometimes people think on politics too much and become overdramatic. This is a perfect example right here. Things really aren't that bad the way they are right now. Just walk outside and enjoy the sun and life seems pretty nice, but don't huddle in your room overthinking political ideas(atleast not every day) Relax man.

[Wells]

But, good sir, you have a gun pointed at your head every day. Every time you pay a tax, there is a gun at your head robbing you. You are not free, assuming you're in some nation of some sort. If you don't pay your taxes, you get a court date, if you don't show up, police go to your house and apprehend you, if you defend yourself, you are gunned down.

Then leave the country. Lots of unclaimed land in Antarctica and ungoverned territory in Africa.

use any currency other than Federal Reserve Notes as legal tender, and the list goes on

You can pay for your stuff in whatever you want as long as the other guy takes it. McDonald's can list their prices in beaver pelts for all the government cares. What the government requires is that people accept their money as valid money on top of whatever else they want to trade with. Because as it turns out government works better when everyone can pay for stuff with their money.

Government has not ever helped you in any way, because it encourages us to make immoral decisions on the basis that there is some sort of enforced correction to be made. You won't teach your kids that killing is immoral because they'll find out through media, school or a cop themselves that violence is punishable.

Government has the sole right to violence because society has allowed it to them as a necessary part of fulfilling the goals we want them to, such as protecting the peace. So yes, government has the right to force, but we're the ones who gave it to them and its a good thing.

[poogle]

I'm no expert, but isn't this a pretty big misuse of the label anarchy? What you're talking about is replacing 1 system with another - sure the authority would be decentralised but it would still be there. Someone has to make up the rules, and inevitably someone will have to enforce them. Calling it morally correct is equally pointless from what I understand, given that anarchy advocates moral freedom.

Aside from that you vastly underplay the importance of currency. Sure the system as it stands isn't perfect, but a barter system simply wouldn't work for modern society. You think medical care will suddenly become cheap? Do you have any idea what it takes to produce modern medicines & medical equipment, not even bringing in the massive requirements of the education system needed to train the people who develop them.

And all that junk about private defense companies? Who exactly is going to pay them to conduct national, or even local defense? Communities would be the only answer to that question (and the same goes for roads & infrastructure etc.), so essentially you're back to paying taxes.

True the current system isn't perfect, but neither are people so you can't expect there to ever be an ideal solution. That said I'll take government, stable society, infrastructure & technology over the clusterduck that would be your suggestion.

[Deleted]

We have no need to teach children morals with a statist society, because they will just be corrected later on, as opposed to the ideal anarcho-capitalist society, where immoral behavior is prevented, rather than corrected.

I can understand the theoretical appeal of utopian anarchism, or anarcho-syndicalism, but their failings have been pointed out a lot of times in this thread. But anarcho-capitalism? I can't imagine even any positive trait in that one. Unless you start out with dismantling all corporations, confiscate all property and distribute it evenly before declaring your new society, "anarcho-capitalism" would be just corporate tyrrany with much less freedom than current democratic societies.

And even if you start with an egalitarian society, it could quickly degenerate into oligarchy. Russia under Yeltsin's rule sounds pretty close to anarcho-capitalism to me, with the bonus above. The "oligarchs" and the Russian mafia were the first results of this, and much of Putin's popularity at first was that he restored some order.

[Marrel]

Political ideals have a habit of leading to violence...
-"We do it this way"
-"No we'll do it that way"
-"I disagree"

This happens all of the time.

Political ideals have a habit of leading to violence...
-"I'm angry and will bash your head in with a rock"

Not sure where you are pulling this from. There have been very few cases of political violence in developed countries for decades. Political disagreements have evolved from resulting in violence/anger to resulting in a counter argument or compromise.

Political ideals have a habit of leading to violence...
The philosophy doesn't in and of itself preach violence...the violence happens when people with power are told that they're not allowed to have power any more.

The turnover of power in developed countries (aka countries with established government), is very peaceful. Look at the U.S., England, Germany, Russia, China, hell even North Korea. All peaceful transfers of power. When the leaders of developed countries have served for their limit, they always hand over their duties peacefully to the next person who is elected.

[Omgitschris]

I took your advice OP and read your whole post.

What you're describing sounds a LOT like a socialistic society akin to Communism, just without Government controlling it. I do not know what you think Anarchism can do for our society today but whatever you're describing is almost impossible due to our own human nature and the fact that not only are we assholes to each other, but we're also terribly greedy. Do not reply to this thread saying not everyone is like that because that is given but honestly, greed would take over so fast especially in an opportunistic society like today. If you want to see what real world applications of Anarchy can do I think you need to look up Somalia instead. That would give you a more proper idea of what would happen. The fact that you cited the Icelandic Commonwealth kind of bothered me to be honest. You can't take a completely disconnected, personal society, and try to relate it to our hyper-connected, non-personal society at all. Back then it may have worked but that was because they all had a common goal. Now? Not so much. Too much fragmentation not only within Government but even in our own neighborhoods would make your vision crumble before it started. Now I won't just end it here as if I would throw all this hot air at you without any real substance.

First:

Government is the initiation of force. Think about it. Try not paying your taxes. At first you'll let a letter or a phone call saying "Hey, you aren't paying! Pay up!" Next you get a notice to go to court. And after that, police will show up to your house to apprehend you.

I have a hard time believing that you think this is how it works. Taxation is absolutely integral to our society to help with basic needs such as Water, Roads, Mail, Defense etc etc.. Privatization of these services would only allow monopolies to occur since there would be zero regulation from the government. Everything would be cheaper at first for companies to get the most customers possible. They would gobble up smaller ones and eventually be the only one and bam, right then and there would you have a massive increase in pricing. With Government we honestly don't have to worry about that too much, sure taxes wax and wane but this is how the Government adjusts to supply and demand of a certain service. It would be nice to live in a world that you imagine but highly impractical in the end considering what would happen.

Second:

Government breaks the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) by initiating force upon it's sheep (citizens).

This is funny. Honestly I don't think you realize that the government absolutely has the right to do what it does in most cases. Yes there are outliers, but guess what, this only supports my notion that people are assholes to each other; think Rodney King in this case. On the whole, whenever any force is used, it is calculated and justified (I'm speaking police here, not military). When people do not pay taxes or don't follow the law they don't get immediate force against them. They get warnings. Every time you get a speeding ticket you don't get thrown in to prison or shot on sight do you? Didn't think so. People who ignore those warnings get in trouble, it happens. I understand why some people don't want to pay taxes, it makes complete sense, but the purpose of it is as I described above, to provide basic services that the whole country needs. I would NEVER leave it up to a private company to police my streets, or to fix my roads. Why? Because it would cost more than what I'm paying now and for only a marginal upgrade or a possible and awful downgrade.

Third:

"Well, what happens if we're invaded?" Private defense organizations/defense insurance companies would be there!

That wouldn't happen. At all. What works so well right now is that most volunteers decide to defend their country. Private forces are there for money and nothing else. If the only national defense after the fall of government was based upon private firms this country would have internal strife over who controlled what territories. Since you need to control something in order to defend it, the basis of a National Military comes clear. With the government there is a definitive reason to defend the territory. The government doesn't want to lose not only it's own people to whatever means, but it's own control over the territory. In this you find that in some fashion, the government would act like a private firm protecting it's own assets, but it works in this example because of a unified territory. Not a fragmented conglomeration of cities or counties or whatever structure would be used. One more thing to mention is if it became so personal as to say that outside of cities there would be no cohesion then we would be stepping back thousands of years of societal evolution, back to a time when City-states were the power and war and control were rampant.

Fourth:

"Currency! What will be the currency of a stateless society!?" It doesn't matter. You could trade gold, silver, rocks, spoons or even pens. Whatever the seller wants that buyer will offer in exchange for the product the customer wants.

This is bartering. Works well in small communities but like I said above, that would just equate to the past, and eventually those communities would need some form of monetary exchange since Bartering only works well when you have access to all necessary resources. With the way our civilization has evolved, resources are outsourced a lot of the time, if we back up and do what you say, we would be depriving ourselves of certain necessary resources. Global trade is 100% necessary, and if we were to on the supreme off chance become a global anarchy, resources would not only become protected assets among a very wide group of individual factions, they would also skyrocket in price. Bartering would be defeated right there.

Fifth:

"Education is not receivable to most people without a government provided system!" Government has lowered education standards and does not actually teach you much. If you're older than 30 try telling me the integral of cotx.

Where did you learn that? Home Schooling? Private Education? Public? Regardless of what you may think, Government isn't the reason education has lowered itself. It's the fact that parents and our society as a whole has allowed Education to becomes less relevant. It definitely seems like it could be the governments fault, I will absolutely admit that the Public school system is flawed in some respect; but I do not and will not believe that the government would just sit down and think Education is not relevant to their interests. Higher education, although horribly under-subsidized but subsidized via government student loans, is still almost all private. There's a lot of very fine institutions that are *GASP* Public though. University of Michigan for a very great example is a Public University. Mostly funded by public money, they still have a sizable dowry of private donation don't get me wrong, but it's day to day operations, money for new buildings of study, new courses, and even enhancement of current courses is mostly done through PUBLIC money, also known as Taxes!

Sixth:

"Well what about courts! For crimes such as murder, theft, or fraud!" Privately run courts would exist, where the defendants and prosecutors would mutually agree to attend, so as to deter corruption. There could be 1 juror or 100, based on a voluntary or salary system. It may not be the absolute perfect system, but is our current one better? Just look at some of the corruption that is going on!

Our Justice system never claimed itself to be perfect, that being said, I will AGAIN say that Humans are assholes to each other. Corruption exists because of Greed or leverage, but I was highly surprised to read that one of your ideas include giving salaries to jurors or even volunteers. That would breed corruption right there. How? Salaries imply a long term employment in a service. If you were to allow jurors to be long term over the course of different trials, you would basically open up the notion to buying a jury, seeing as how the salary has to come from somewhere. I would like to know where that salary would come from in your imagined Anarchist world. My understanding is that any structured system in an anarchistic system is that in itself not anarchistic, so it would be impossible for that to work. I still would like to hear your thoughts on that one.

Seventh:

So, those are the ways anarchism would benefit us, whereas the state not only does not benefit it, it hinders us, enslaves us and attacks us

Six supposed "benefits" out of the millions of different variables that you completely overlooked kind of make your argument seem almost based on a large degree of ignorance on the subject as a whole.. I do not see how the state actively hinders me. I come home every day, not to the state telling me what to do, but to what I want to do. I sit here and type on my own computer because I am not a slave nor am I going to be one because of the state. I would like you to answer this one question though before I'm done:

Since it's obvious that every Anarchistic society has failed or is failing, why is it still the solution to the "problem" of the state?

[OrcsRLame]

But, good sir, you have a gun pointed at your head every day. Every time you pay a tax, there is a gun at your head robbing you. You are not free, assuming you're in some nation of some sort. If you don't pay your taxes, you get a court date, if you don't show up, police go to your house and apprehend you, if you defend yourself, you are gunned down. Also, you are not free to do what you want in your everyday life. In the U.S., for example, you may not, under federal law, smoke marijuana, engage in prostitution, use any currency other than Federal Reserve Notes as legal tender, and the list goes on. Unless you have self-established yourself on Antarctica, some cay in the Caribbean, or live outside of Earth's atmosphere, you are not, never have been, and most likely, never will be free. I cannot believe the amount of submission people give to the government. Government has not ever helped you in any way, because it encourages us to make immoral decisions on the basis that there is some sort of enforced correction to be made. You won't teach your kids that killing is immoral because they'll find out through media, school or a cop themselves that violence is punishable. We have no need to teach children morals with a statist society, because they will just be corrected later on, as opposed to the ideal anarcho-capitalist society, where immoral behavior is prevented, rather than corrected.

See, that's where you're wrong. I don't mind paying taxes, though for the record, I'm a college student. I don't have an income of my own, so technically, I've never actually payed taxes, my parents have. ^_^ Also, you're speaking figuratively, I'm speaking literally. There is no gun held to my head at this moment, and there never has been. Someone cannot, right now, end my life by pulling a trigger. Assuming there's no sniper with a science-fiction-y gun with some kind of X-ray scope and super armor piercing bullets looking at my face and thinking about how lovely it would be to blow it off right now.

Also, there is such a thing as legal prostitution, though it's extremely expensive, (Ever heard of the bunny ranch in Vegas?) but I also have no interest in prostitution, or doing pot. So I don't care if I'm not free to engage in those acts.

I'll tell you what I am free to do, pretty much whatever the fuck I want. You know what, it's a Saturday, and I have nothing else planned. I am going to make a choice with the freedom I have. I am going to sit on my ass today and play Devil May Cry 3 and watch league of legends live streams. All day long. Without the government, there's no guarantee whatsoever, beyond theoretical philosophy that I would be able to do that today. I may not have an xbox to play DMC on, I may not have a computer to watch streams, I may not have the electrical power to run my computer and console, I may not have internet to get on own3d's website. Fuck, I may not even have an ass to sit on. And even if I did have all that, there's no guarantee that I wouldn't be forced to spend the entire day fighting off people that are trying to steal my stuff.

I also don't think privatizing things like the military is a very good idea. Why? Well, instead of spending time debating with you, I have a better idea. Go play a video game called Army of Two, (it's a lot better with a buddy) that's kind of that game's main theme, and well... You're clearly so much smarter than me that you could probably tell me the potential pitfalls of a privatized military after playing that game. ^_^

[Reinhard von Lohengramm]

The notion that Anarchy can work for any significant period is foolish.
As sad as it sounds people need someone to guide them....whether that guidance be good or evil.....it is needed.

[seta-san]

anarchy is great in theory. No laws. No force. But there's a problem
It requires perfect people.
Ten minutes in anarchy there will be chaos. Ten minutes after that people will start to organize( the beginning of a new government)

[Reinhard von Lohengramm]

anarchy is great in theory. No laws. No force. But there's a problem
It requires perfect people.
Ten minutes in anarchy there will be chaos. Ten minutes after that people will start to organize( the beginning of a new government)

Kind of like communism. It's majestic and beautiful in theory....but then you have to factor in the fact that we are humans. Humans are flawed and greedy at heart, and that undermines the concepts of communism or anarchy.

[Zecora]

Well, I don't see any rules against it, but if you're so inclined, ban free discussion in an Off-Topic Forum! Be my guest! I cannot force people to change their minds, I came here on the sole basis of arguing my position. Forums are for polls, ideas, debates, facts, evidence, and reason. I don't know why this is such a crime to so many people...

Congratulations, you just presented my opinion as something radically different from what it is. I believe that is known as a strawman.

I've nothing against open discussion on any subject (within reason). However, the extremism shown in most threads on this and other forums amply show that placing power directly into the hands of individuals, without a surrounding structure that they are answerable to, is at best a huge gamble, at worst a disaster. Imagine, if you will, what MMO-Champion would look like, were it devoid of moderation and moderators. Then expand that thought-experiment to the entirety of society.

[JSG31494]

I cannot respond to all of you, sorry. There is too much to quote. All I can say is, that it is impossible for me to live as an anarchist today. Moving to Antarctica or Africa is an outrageous and suicidal idea. Sure, I could pay the car salesman $20,000 worth of gold for a car, and he can accept it, but if an issue arises over this deal, I cannot be backed in court as having paid because gold is not considered legal tender. Taxes are not necessary for roads, water, electricity or whatever. The argument of "monopolies will form" and "corporations will run it all" is absurd because first of all, there is such a thing as competition, and when everything is privatized, you have maximum competition. Second of all, corporations are products of the state. Please tell me how a corporation can exist without the state creating it. Sole proprietorship, partnerships and corporations are all products of the state. And what I get from Laurcus' reply is that he is perfectly content being controlled by the state, has no desire to seek change at all, and cares little for the non-aggression principle, which states that the initiation or threat of initiation of force is immoral. At this point in the thread, its blatantly obvious that none of you are really going to try to consider how anarchy may work some day in the future, but it really sucks to see that none of you will really even recognize that taxation is immoral. If you want a good read, (or a good laugh if you're that stubborn) read Practical Anarchy by Stefan Molyneux, it's available online for free at freedomainradio.com. It details how anarchy would work (according to his facts and evidence).

[Grizzly Willy]

Taxes are not necessary for roads, water, electricity or whatever. The argument of "monopolies will form" and "corporations will run it all" is absurd because first of all, there is such a thing as competition, and when everything is privatized, you have maximum competition.

Could you explain this? The infrastructure modern nations use in order to supply power and transportation to their citizens are colossal time and money sinks that require the coordination of industries and laborers. How would you propose we pay to construct and repair them without a central group guiding everything along? Again, I find your view of human nature to be really short sighted. In order for this to function you would need a society in which everybody cares about other people, and we just don't have that in modern nations. There are enough bad eggs to spoil the basket, so to speak, and expecting all of this to get done without some larger force governing it is, quite frankly, impossible.

Second of all, corporations are products of the state. Please tell me how a corporation can exist without the state creating it. Sole proprietorship, partnerships and corporations are all products of the state. And what I get from Laurcus' reply is that he is perfectly content being controlled by the state, has no desire to seek change at all, and cares little for the non-aggression principle, which states that the initiation or threat of initiation of force is immoral. At this point in the thread, its blatantly obvious that none of you are really going to try to consider how anarchy may work some day in the future, but it really sucks to see that none of you will really even recognize that taxation is immoral. If you want a good read, (or a good laugh if you're that stubborn) read Practical Anarchy by Stefan Molyneux, it's available online for free at freedomainradio.com. It details how anarchy would work (according to his facts and evidence).

I find another problem with your responses. You fall back on the "you're so close minded" argument just because we don't think you have provided sufficient evidence to prove your hypothesis. If you want to be taken seriously you're going to have to back up your arguments, and to be honest, I highly doubt you're going to be able to. I don't quite have the time to read through the book you've suggested, so I'll post another response after looking it over. For the time being, however, it's you who can be said to be close minded, as you thus far have been unable to reconcile the argument levied against you with any solid arguments while calling us blind for not following you with your rather meager evidence. If you want to be a shepherd you need to be able to convince the flock to follow.