The Problem with Anarchism

[acptulsa]

“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” ― Thomas Jefferson

[ClaytonB]

“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” ― Thomas Jefferson

The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? The organizers maintain that society, when left undirected, rushes headlong to its inevitable destruction because the instincts of the people are so perverse. The legislators claim to stop this suicidal course and to give it a saner direction. Apparently, then, the legislators and the organizers have received from Heaven an intelligence and virtue that place them beyond and above mankind; if so, let them show their titles to this superiority.

They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.

-- Frederic Batiat, The Law

[ClaytonB]

The problem with anarchism is ... <insert long winded argument here>

The problem with statism is... the state.

[Invisible Man]

Ok, so describe a simple example of what an island of anarchists would look like?

I don't think there's a single description. But there is no service or product provided by the state that they wouldn't be able to have available in the marketplace for them if they demand it.

The argument that these people need to be conquered and taken over by some state so that this state can protect them from being conquered and taken over by some state doesn't make sense to me.

[Madison320]

I don't think there's a single description. But there is no service or product provided by the state that they wouldn't be able to have available in the marketplace for them if they demand it.

The catch is that as soon as you hire someone to defend the island you've got a state. and if you don't hire someone, you're going to get invaded and you'll get a state.

The argument that these people need to be conquered and taken over by some state so that this state can protect them from being conquered and taken over by some state doesn't make sense to me.

It doesn't make sense if you assume all states are equally bad.

[Madison320]

See? That's my point. You're building the foundation of your case on collective force = State.

When you heard of armed business owners on rooftops during the Rodney King riots, did you call for an embassy to be built in Watts?

My argument is that whoever has the most collective force in a given area is the state. In the caveman days it was the big guy with a club. In somalia it's the local warlord. In most countries now it's an elected government. But in every single case there's someone who exerting physical force over you anywhere on earth. So what difference does it make if the entity that's making you do stuff is officially recognized as a state? So absolutely the only option is to try to form a state that spends more of it's time protecting your rights than violating them.

[ClaytonB]

My argument is that whoever has the most collective force in a given area is the state. In the caveman days it was the big guy with a club. In somalia it's the local warlord. In most countries now it's an elected government. But in every single case there's someone who exerting physical force over you anywhere on earth. So what difference does it make if the entity that's making you do stuff is officially recognized as a state? So absolutely the only option is to try to form a state that spends more of it's time protecting your rights than violating them.

Now just translate everything you said about the individual, state and property into terms of inmates, gang-leaders, prison and cells. Everywhere you go in prison, some gang-leader exerts power. He has a gang that follows him and if you're not part of some other gang, they'll either recruit you or kill you. So absolutely the only option is to try to form a gang that spends more of its time protecting you than raping you. But you're gonna get raped no matter what. It's prison.

The point of anarchist philosophy (or simply, freedom-as-such) is that this is not an acceptable state-of-affairs. If being ruled by evil men truly is inevitable (and then you die), then we were indeed born into hell. But if you have faith and you believe that God is good and that he has not cast us off forever, then this is not hell, it is some temporary evil world which is due to be replaced by a coming, upright order. What is that order? And that's where the anarchist philosophy of government comes into play. Let there be collective defense. Let there be fees/dues collected for the funding of the collective defense. And so on, and so forth. There is nothing in the logistics of government that necessitates aggression against those that the government was formed to defend and prosper. The idea that you must aggress against people "a little bit" in order to have a peaceful, orderly, prosperous society is the very idea that anarchist philosophy challenges and rejects. This is the fundamental corruption of the civil order that resulted from the Fall. It is a lie straight from the pit of hell.

[Invisible Man]

The catch is that as soon as you hire someone to defend the island you've got a state.

How so? Do you think that the security people in every private business are states?

It doesn't make sense if you assume all states are equally bad.

Not all states are equally bad. But all states are both established and maintained by conquest and not voluntary agreement.

[acptulsa]

My argument is that whoever has the most collective force in a given area is the state.

So you were in favor of building an embassy in Watts during the King riots. You just figured that was not for the business owners on the rooftops, but for the rioters.

Or did I not definite "area" widely enough to make your other definition work?

My point is, you aren't trying to discuss this, you're playing gotcha games. And I stand by that.

[Madison320]

So you were in favor of building an embassy in Watts during the King riots. You just figured that was not for the business owners on the rooftops, but for the rioters.

Or did I not definite "area" widely enough to make your other definition work?

My point is, you aren't trying to discuss this, you're playing gotcha games. And I stand by that.

I really have no idea what your question is. What does building an embassy in watts mean?

[acptulsa]

I really have no idea what your question is. What does building an embassy in watts mean?

During the riot, the rioters had "...the most collective force in the area" and therefore was a "state".

Where our embassy be at, bitch?

Or to put it another way, Mirriam Webster doesn't like your definition, and neither do I. But I really don't feel like arguing about it. Furthermore, I'm not going to. No matter how often you accuse me of "avoid(ing) the thought experiment".

[Madison320]

How so? Do you think that the security people in every private business are states?

Not always. Only when they have the most collective force in a given area.

[acptulsa]

Not always. Only when they have the most collective force in a given area.

Where I live was once the State of Pinkerton and I never knew it. What's more, Pinkerton's never knew it either. Somebody fix the history books.

[Madison320]

During the riot, the rioters had "...the most collective force in the area" and therefore was a "state".

Where our embassy be at, bitch?

Or to put it another way, Mirriam Webster doesn't like your definition, and neither do I. But I really don't feel like arguing about it.

Ok, forget about the term "state". My point is that there's always going to be someone forcing you to do stuff against your will. I don't care what you call it. So the trick is to control as best you can the people that are trying to use force against you. And the only way to do that is to have more force than that person/group.

[ClaytonB]

Ok, forget about the term "state". My point is that there's always going to be someone forcing you to do stuff against your will. I don't care what you call it. So the trick is to control as best you can the people that are trying to use force against you. And the only way to do that is to have more force than that person/group.

The assertion, "there's always going to be someone forcing you to do stuff against your will" is the very question that is in contention. People assume that there's always going to be someone forcing you to do stuff against your will (or prohibiting you from doing lawful stuff you want to do). But widespread assumptions are not true simply because they are widespread.

The assumption that, "there's always going to be someone forcing you to do stuff against your will" is based on the (false) assumption that there must be a Stone Cold Steve Austin in order for there to be social order. It is assumed to be impossible that men who could fight with each other would separately choose not to fight, and settle their conflict rationally. But what is the rational justification for this assumption? Sure, I will grant you that human history is littered with examples, and so "the evidence" is surely on the side of those who take your position. But the fact that things have always been this way does not prove that things always must be this way. If it did, nothing could ever change. But things do change.

I already gave the solution to this quandary in an earlier post. The reason that human society always defaults to the Stone Cold Steve Austin solution -- that is, the State -- is the aforementioned a$$hole-problem. Basically, the king is the ultra-a$$hole. His job is to be the most powerful a$$hole who can out-a$$hole all others. "BECAUSE I SAID SO." Historically, this has freed most people, most of the time, from having to directly deal with the swamp of politics, leaving that filthy job to the a$$holes in the royal court. It's not a very good solution, but it's a kinda-sorta solution that has partly worked for the duration. But what is happening in our generation is that the political swamp has reached the point where it can no longer be dammed up in its own cesspool and it is spilling out onto the rest of us. Politics has become absolutely unavoidable. Even tiny schoolchildren are being subjected to it with the mask mandates and vax mandates.

Despite its nastiness, the State used to perform one positive role -- it was a magnet for all the worst elements of society and so it corralled all of them together in a tightly knit group, freeing much of society to escape much of their nastiness, much of the time. Obviously, taxation, war-raids, pogroms, etc. etc. are among the many exceptions to this rule. But they are exceptions. Commoners who studiously avoided politics were much more likely to live out their lives in relative peace, than were the wealthy nobles, kings, etc. This is no longer true. The French Revolution and, later, the rise of 20th-century communism were the first manifestations of this phenomenon of utterly inescapable politics. When this happens, you cannot pay the taxman enough to be rid of him. He will not even accept the offering up of your flesh. Nothing will satisfy him except to own your very soul, to enslave your mind and heart as an extension of himself, to go out into the world as a mindless, zombie extension of the will of the State. It is an offer you cannot refuse.

Until the early 2000's, almost all Americans saw the United States as a self-conscious exception to this pattern. Whether that was really true or not, is beside the point. The point is that the vast majority of Americans -- except for a tiny number of jeremiad voices -- perceived our country as mostly devoid of this kind of toxic, invasive political reality that actively infests every home like some kind of alien parasite. This perception is part and parcel of the much-vaunted "American exceptionalism." The idea was supposed to be that things aren't run that way around here, and they never will be.

Welcome to 2022 post-doomsday-virus United States. Between 9/11 and approximately January 2020, the United States has been radically and exhaustively transformed, all the way down to its deepest cultural roots, from a country that vehemently rejected tyranny in all of its manifestations (including the inevitability-of-tyranny argument, "there's always going to be someone forcing you to do stuff against your will"), into a zombie country that is operated by remote-control from foreign nations. Some kind of reality-warp is distorting even the behavior and discussion of ordinary people in bizarre ways that are difficult to describe in words. Whatever is happening to our country is some kind of alien infestation. It is not an organic change that occurred from the grassroots.

I wrote all of that to say that we are literally living out this argument in the United States, today. The logic of the omni-a$$hole Strongman State has been pushed to its absolute apex. The only next step further down this chain of logic is the literal Antichrist himself. And it may very well be the case that we have to go to that extreme and have the final showdown, right now. The Antichrist NWO and its Beast system makes for great late-night comedy punchlines, and it's all fun and games until they go from push to shove. We have really reached an unprecedented apex in history where there is no further territory for the State to conquer, and there are no further frontiers for peaceful men to flee the evil of the State. They are right now invading our homes, our churches, our workplaces, and our very minds and words. These men are quite literally animated by the forces of hell, and they cannot cease doing evil until they have made us into them. So, this is not just an abstract debate. This is the very debate that is playing out on the stage of 2022 America. The mechanism is spinning more and more wildly out of control...

[Madison320]

How so? Do you think that the security people in every private business are states?

Suppose you voluntarily collect enough money from everyone living on the island to buy a defense contract from SecurityRUs. Forget about the freeloader problem and just assume that you can voluntarily collect it. So far so good. So you hire SecurityRUs and they set up a base with well armed soldiers and some missiles. Then some of those soldiers start raping the women on the island. What happens then? SecurityRUs ignores you. So you try to fire them. Instead they tell you you need to renew your contact for 10 times the original amount or they'll launch a missile at the island. Since they are now the "most force" there's nothing you can do.

This won't happen if you hire SecurityRUs within the United States because SecurityRUs is dwarfed by the US police and military. In that case you can shop for your defense as anarchists like to point out. But that only works within the framework of an existing "most force" or state.

[ClaytonB]

Suppose you voluntarily collect enough money from everyone living on the island to buy a defense contract from SecurityRUs. Forget about the freeloader problem and just assume that you can voluntarily collect it. So far so good. So you hire SecurityRUs and they set up a base with well armed soldiers and some missiles. Then some of those soldiers start raping the women on the island. What happens then? SecurityRUs ignores you. So you try to fire them. Instead they tell you you need to renew your contact for 10 times the original amount or they'll launch a missile at the island. Since they are now the "most force" there's nothing you can do.

So, the worst thing can happen is that nothing changes? Sounds like it's worth a shot...

This won't happen if you hire SecurityRUs within the United States because SecurityRUs is dwarfed by the US police and military. In that case you can shop for your defense as anarchists like to point out. But that only works within the framework of an existing "most force" or state.

This is what I call "dog logic". There is no escaping the biggest-dog. The biggest-dog always wins. And so all dogs must become unified into a single pyramidal wolf-pack and whoever is the biggest, strongest dog will necessarily be at the top.

That is the very assumption that anarchist philosophy challenges. I can choose to reason with you even if I am stronger than you, all things considered. This possibility does not exist in a vacuum, it is a reflection of the image of God within us. The point is that "dog logic" requires us to just assume that the stronger man will always act up to the limits of his strength, without respect to truth and righteousness. What is the reason that the stronger man must necessarily choose to act up to the limits of his strength?