Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: AirshipAdmiral on July 26, 2013, 02:02 am
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Anarchy, as most of us here probably (hopefully) already know, describes a society without leaders or government. As the Dread Pirate Roberts, being a true libertarian, would define it, government is a monopoly on the use of force, in other words, the "legitimacy" of enforcing laws.
And so, anarchy would be a society where there was no distinction between "legitimacy" police and law enforcement and "taking the law into your own hands" as vigilantes.
Some of the major contentions concerning anarchy and whether it is a viable or desirable system often focuses on whether a system of law and order that does not rely on a small group of law writers and law enforcers, but rather lets anyone define and enforce laws as vigilantes or mercenaries.
I would like to know what the Silk Road Forums community has to say about this.
Some specific points I'd like more background or angles on are the following:
1) Anarchy is Too Hard or Too Complex!
Labor-movement types concerned with the Everyman or Working Man (as though there is such a thing) tend to focus on the alleged overcomplexity of anarchic systems because deliberate measures are taken to decentralize and disperse real power. The contention is basically that everyday Joes arent smart enough or hardworking enough to bother self-governing or self-disciplining.
This has the unfortunate implications of the alleged pro-everyman that the average Joe is a complete idiot, that he's a lazy bum, inherently irresponsible and prone to binging on drugs, uncontrollable spending sprees, or murder and rape. The everyman is a monster, basically, and so the Omnipotent State must enforce control upon the Everyman so that he may live a happy life. The State is doing it for his own good, you see.
2) Anarchy is Impractical or Only Works on Paper
This is actually a category of issues raised against the pragmatism or feasibility of an anarchic society and social order, and most of them concern themselves with things like public education, public health care, poverty relief and social security, unemployment and labor regulations, child labor, child trafficking, border control, warfare and national defense, scarce and non-renewable resources and natural resource depletion, and other things that allegedly "absolutely require the necessary evil of the State."
The problem I have, and other anarchists tend to have, with this sort of argument, is that it makes several assumptions, assumptions with varying degrees of inaccuracy or possibly deliberate deception.
The assumptions range from "Tragedy of the Commons cannot be solved by the Commons," that agents of the State really are any better than any of us, any of the non-government agents, at solving such social or resource scarcity problems, and that government did NOT, in fact, CAUSE most of these problems in the first place in order to cement their power.
3) Anarchy is Chaos
Some more naive or ignorant arguments against anarchic societies is that without a centralized monopoly of the use of force. Only the Omnipotent State has the right to kill your brother, sister, mother, father or children. Only the Almighty State, in Her Infinite Wisdom, has the right to kidnap your children, steal your income and property, to slay you, or toss you into a cold concrete cell in the middle of nowhere. Anyone else doing it is a Bad Person, a Criminal.
And so, without this Omnipotent and Almighty State bringing Justice and Order to the Lawless Lands, obviously, the only possible result would be children dying, wives turning into widows, men eating men, dogs and their owners raping other owners with their own dogs, and madmen running around naked with a fistfull of moral-corrupting drugs forcing them down honest God-fearing families teenagers' throats and teaching them rock and roll and eternal sexual freedom.
Basically, the natural state of Man is Evil. I doubt many anarchists are THAT cynical. As cynical as I am, I still believe humans can, if given a chance, learn to discipline and govern themselves, as free individuals, with honor and responsibility, and the capacity to learn from his mistakes, and to make wise decisions on his own, without some almighty all-knowing Big Brother breathing down his neck.
There are many other inaccuracies or outright deliberate lies and misinformation concerning anarchy, and I was wondering if anyone would mind shedding some light upon this topic?
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Just a quick idea. It's in the nature of humans to organize in tribes, small groups that belong together and support each other in daily activities. So, if left to themselves, humans would do just that. And from bottom-up, a structure would build anyways, which is based on humans' needs not on a ruling elite's goal.
The question is, how about those who are greedy for power over others ? If those still exist, those would be the disruptors. They would try to install a system as we are having now, and that's where we are already ;-)
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I'm mostly in line with what you've posted, and I'll probably come back and post more when I have some more free time.
Labor-movement types concerned with the Everyman or Working Man (as though there is such a thing) tend to focus on the alleged overcomplexity of anarchic systems because deliberate measures are taken to decentralize and disperse real power.
I'm not too sure where this comes from? Do you mean trade-unionists or something along those lines? Or just the "contemporary" labour movement in general? I'm particularly thinking of the IWW here to challenge your point regarding labour-movement types, as they are anarcho-syndicalist (which is where I lean towards).
Basically, the natural state of Man is Evil. I doubt many anarchists are THAT cynical. As cynical as I am, I still believe humans can, if given a chance, learn to discipline and govern themselves, as free individuals, with honor and responsibility, and the capacity to learn from his mistakes, and to make wise decisions on his own, without some almighty all-knowing Big Brother breathing down his neck.
Of course, I agree here, but I am hesitant to use the discourse of "human nature" in almost any capacity. I think if I were to confidently discuss "human nature", I would assert that human nature (even though I don't like this phrasing) is social, and to be social is to be dynamic. The characteristics of that 'dynamic' are more or less fluid, so it would be impossible, I think, to assert with any certainty or empiricism that human beings are either good or bad.