Anarchic Order

Spintech Magazine ^ | January 4, 2002 | Paul Hein, M.D.

[Trident/Delta]

I agree with you whole heartedly. And I honestly wish that we could easily achieve that goal. But, until the "masses" wake up and begin to take responsible actions for their governance, we are going to be struck with what we have, perhaps with further erosion.

Semper Fi

[Architect]

Anarchic Order

All sufficiently-complex systems are self-ordering. Think of an ecology. The conifers grow on the hills and the cactii in the deserts. Nobody orders them to. It just happens. The same thing happens in an economy. We use the term "marketplace" to refer to this particular self-ordering mechanism.

When government imposes its will on society, this has the effect, not of imposing order on disorder, but rather of freezing motion. In other words, it does not impose order. It imposes stasis.

[ctdonath2]

Being close to anarchy is one thing.
Being at anarchy is something very different.

The former is what made this country great.
The latter is what made others "third world".

[Architect]

Financial institutions (and like it or not an insurance company is a financial instituion) are the bane of the anarchic society.

Why? Historically, insurance societies have been cooperative institutions set up by small groups like residents of a particular neighborhood or workers in a particular industry. The "institutionalization" of insurance is a recent phenomenon, dating back to the 1920s.

Not that institutionalized insurance requires government either.

As the article points out, people tend generally to ignore the law and work out their problems without it. Consider, for example, how credit cards now give you the option of resolving disputes through arbitration, not lawsuit. A good step in the direction of the de-legalization of business.

[Aurelius]

"Affirming a contradiction is insanity."

Dictionary definitions of anarchy include things like: chaos; lawlessness and disorder. But these have nothing to do with the meaning of "anarchy". They are at best an inference, and a possibly faulty one at that, of the consequence of anarchy.

It makes me wonder if there is a government conspiracy to, through the dictionary makers, corrupt the language to their advantage. For example, since the passage of Amendment XVI, wages are defined as income and of course they are taxed as income.

[SteamshipTime]

Your points are well-taken, and the problem of guaranteeing property rights seems insoluble without raising an entity which has more guns than anybody else. Historically though, no such governing entity has ever contented itself with protecting property rights and in fact, begins actively working to destroy property rights. Further, nothing--not democratic elections, a written constitution, separation of governing powers--seems to have worked to limit government to date.

The answer to this conundrum may be a complete decentralization of security, rather than its centralization. This is merely an extension of the argument made by Second Amendment proponents.

I do think you are wrong in arguing that an anarchic system must be wrong because it hasn't been voted in. The majority of the electorate consists of net tax consumers who benefit greatly from the current social democratic system.

[SteamshipTime]

I think if you visit the third world, you'll find that government and written laws can be found in abundance. In fact, the government purports to assure fair distribution of resources by keeping them out of private hands. The results have been "chaotic" (or anarchic, if you prefer).

Don't get me wrong; I agree anarchy is problematic, to say the least. Historically though, the inevitable consequence of government appears to be more government since government, with its taxing power and monopoly on offensive force, is able to win more converts to its cause than, say, FreeRepublic.com.

Solutions, anyone?

[Aurelius]

"if anarchy doesn't mean anarchy, what does?"

Anarchy does indeed mean anarchy (in affirming a tautology, you can hardly go wrong.)

The meaning of anarchy is simply: without a ruler or government.

[Trident/Delta]

I do think you are wrong in arguing that an anarchic system must be wrong because it hasn't been voted in. The majority of the electorate consists of net tax consumers who benefit greatly from the current social democratic system.

Thank you for your agreement, it is a pleasure to discourse with an intelligent person. Ref above. My intimation is not that a new system be voted in, but, rather, what form of control would be deployed to keep things on a level keel until a anarchic utopia could be legitimately achieved? I, for one, favor the near elimination of the FED and transfer to power to the inedividual states, but, that plan is rife with problems. Architect seems wrapped up in semantics with little attention to mechanics. What are your views.

Semper Fi

[Aurelius]

"It rather seems to me that words are being redefined in the ivory tower."

I have given you the original meaning f the word, the redefing being done is by the addition of terms not part of the original meaning, and which have the appearance, at least, of being politically motivated.

[Aurelius]

"Without order, in other words."

I would disagree, since the absence of order is not a necessary consequence of the absence of government.

[ctdonath2]

New relevant question:
Assuming a government can be replaced with utopian anarchy, what's to prevent the re-formation of government?

Given a pure anarchy, some people will seek power, some will seek a leader, some will seek protection from attackers/robbers...causing formation of a government. Those who oppose the government being formed will have to similarly organize to create a viable opposition.

Government happens.

[Logophile]

How much would it cost them to hire their own private investigator to do the job? Probably less than the taxpayers put out for the bogus 100,000 more cops on the streets. The point would be, private industry does everything more efficiently than gubmint. So, it would stand to reason private industry would be more efficient at catching bad guy's.

"Probably less"? You could be right that it would cost less for private investigators to catch criminals, but that misses my point: Why should the private property owner spend anything at all to catch a murderer? (Especially if the owner can more easily avoid bad publicity by quietly dumping the body.)

If the concern is to allay customers' fears about crime, it would make more sense for a business owner to spend money on better security than to pursue a criminal who might be long gone.

The one thing that grates at me more than any other single issue, is when election time roles around and they start screaming about, The American People want "fill in the blank". If they had any clue as to what the people want, or even cared, we wouldn't have this bloated power hungry beastly gubmint we have today. I liken an Anarchist to Lover of Freedom, always have and always will. Blackbird.

I share your frustration with the current state of affairs. But don't you see? The problem is that the people of the United State have accepted bigger government -- and in some cases welcomed it. If the same people found themselves in an anarchist utopia, how long would it be before they invited big government back?