Replies

I wrote:

You talk of government as if it were a foreign entity imposed on society.

You replied:

That is precisely what it is. A government may, as you say, be organic and grow out of its community (or more accurately, out of previous governments). But that does not change its purpose - which is to control and manipulate the development of that community. It imposes a system of law and order instead of letting the market choose the mechanisms for self-defense and conflict resolution which work best.

You speak of the government as a thing, an abstraction. But the government is a group of human beings, who share a language, a history, and a culture. And like all human beings, they are fallible. Some are even evil, and they do evil things. The point is, the "government" is not so very different from the "society" that produced it. Even the worst governments must have the support of a sizeable fraction of the ppulation they govern.

You also speak of the market as a thing, an abstraction. But it too is made up of fallible human beings, some of whom are evil. There is no guarantee that a free market will form spontaneously in a given society, or that it will "choose the mechanisms for self-defense and conflict resolution which work best."

I wrote:

Have you considered why there are no anarchistic societies anywhere today?

You replied:

Historically, they have been conquered by states. Once installed, the state has been extremely difficult to weed out.

This is not a ringing endorsement of anarchies. Apparently, anarchies cannot compete with other forms of social organization. Who wants to be conquered by a foreign people?

I wrote:

What sort of society would be required for anarchy to form and florish spontaneously?

You replied:

Well, the first step is obviously for people to recognize that such a thing is thinkable.

I would say that a second would be a recognition of the right to individual secession. A friend of mine has this dream of buying an island in the Straits of Juan de Fuca and making her own country. Why the hell shouldn't she have the right to do precisely that?

Getting people to think is a good first step, and you certainly are doing that here. (I am not sure how "individual secession" would work in practice, however.)

I would add that the people must possess certain virtues -- such as honesty, self-restraint, and self-reliance -- for any free society to exist.

The government is a group of human beings, who share a language, a history, and a culture. And like all human beings, they are fallible. Some are even evil, and they do evil things. The point is, the "government" is not so very different from the "society" that produced it.

A government is very different from the society that produces it.

von Mises, in his “Socialism”, proves that even in a perfect world, The State is incapable of performing the objectives which we set out for it. This is because it has no way to measure the progress of its endeavors. There is no yardstick by which we can judge progress so it engages in movement for the sake of movement. This we call bureaucratic waste. This in itself is unacceptable – but the truth is far worse.

People are not perfect. They have foibles and weaknesses. The State, by its very nature is evil. It is not a reflection of the Public but rather a perverse and distorted amplification of the Public's worse tendencies.

Here’s a definition of a state for you: a State is an agency that exists for the distribution of stolen goods to politically favored groups. It takes money from the productive through taxes and distributes it to groups that are well connected. Since it rests on a foundation of theft, it necessarily is corrupt. All its actions serve to increase the amount of theft and create new groups of parasites to live off that theft.

The primary mechanism that the State uses to incite one man against his fellow is War. In fact, the only thing the State is capable of is war and destruction. Nock said that war is the health of the State. At each war, the State increases its power and pushes the individual under its control a bit further. WWI brought the Income Tax. WWII turned it from a class tax into a mass tax. The power of the State increases. The freedom of the people declines.

Democracies have found new kinds of wars to wage. The War against Poverty. The War against Racism. Against Domestic Violence. Against Crime. Against Drugs. Against Illiteracy. Now, a War against Terrorism. The beauty of these new wars is that they can never be won, since they are wars against human nature itself. Thus the goal fades off into the future and the battle is waged for its own sake, causing still more destruction. The process has already started in the war on terrorism. bin Laden increasingly is forgotten is new countries fall on the scrutiny of the warriors.

Since the only purpose of the State is to create parasites to feed off the productive and the way it does this it through war on human nature, the inevitable result is that agents of State worsen the problems they are designed to correct. Welfare causes poverty. The court system causes crimes. The schools cause illiteracy. The CIA causes insecurity. The Defense department causes war. Etc.

No, the State is very different from the society that produces it. The market brings out the best in bad people. The State brings out the worst in good ones.

A market is not people. It is the mechanism which a self-ordering system uses choosing between options. It does not require people to operate. But human society is a self-ordering system and consequently it progresses and evolves through markets. Despite the claims of the socialists, all human societies have progressed this way. No exceptions.

While markets are not perfect, they come pretty close. More to the point, they are the only mechanism which has been demonstrated to work at all. Perfect socialism is perfect stasis and states can only function at all in so far as they allow freedom of action to their citizens. Which is precisely why the West won against Communism. More liberty.

I said: Historically, they have been conquered by states. Once installed, the state has been extremely difficult to weed out.

You said: This is not a ringing endorsement of anarchies. Apparently, anarchies cannot compete with other forms of social organization. Who wants to be conquered by a foreign people?

True it is not. Ultimately all states have ever been good for is to protect you from other states. Which is not a ringing endorsement of states.

Historically states have won over non-states (and it’s important to note that there have been examples of non-state non-primitive societies) because of two factors: bigger firepower and the element of surprise. The real danger has always been the hordes which suddenly appear at the horizon in ship or on horseback armed with new and more dangerous weapons.

These factors are a lot less important today than they were even fifty years ago.

Pearl Harbor could never happen in today’s world. They would have spotted the fleet the second it left Tokyo Harbor.

More to the point, it is possible to make yourself an extremely unattractive target for relatively little money. The doctrine of MAD works. Combine it a Swiss-style defensive military and no one is going to attack.