I am an atheist anarchist

I like utopian ideologies.

Communism would be great if only the working class agrees en masse to bloodlessly seize factories and distribution centers, and the bourgeoisie agrees to bloodlessly permit it.

TeddyKGB said:

Communism would be great if only the working class agrees en masse to bloodlessly seize factories and distribution centers, and the bourgeoisie agrees to bloodlessly permit it.

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No it wouldn't. What the hell does the working class know about how to properly run a factory or distribution center? They'd need to keep at least the mid-level managers.

Look what happened in zimbabwe:

They kicked the descendants of British colonialists off of their very very profitable pristine farmland, and gave the land back to it's rightful owners the native zimbabweans... works great on paper except none of Mugabe's lackeys who they gave the land too had any clue how to run a farm and now they're all starving to death.

My point is you can't generalize the bourgeoisie it's not like none of them do real work. some of them make too much money and many of them are leaches but others are absolutely necessary.

Poorly executed sarcasm is poorly executed. (On my part.)

TeddyKGB said:

Poorly executed sarcasm is poorly executed. (On my part.)

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I know you were joking

but you've really got to suspend reality in multiple ways before communism actually works.

Nathan45 said:

does "anarchy" not mean what i think it means?

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Nathan45 said:

anarchy is mob rule, essentially.

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From uncertainty to lesson-giving in exactly one hour and twenty minutes.

What flavor did you say that kool-aid was?

I don't like the idea of private police forces. The incentives are all wrong. How would you resolve disputes between private police forces?

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Assuming that the dispute of one police force with another was the fact that the other police force was attempting to initiate force against their customers, which would never happen for a couple of reasons, one of them is that fact they wouldn't even be able to use the roads because they are owned and would be isolated themselves as soon as they are suspected of breaking their contract with their customer, the many honest police forces would notice this and the one evil police force would be stopped.

The private police forces are people just like everyone else. Since the people decide which forces they support (and a portion of the people are family members of the people on the force and a smaller portion is the police force themselves, I include this because social ostracism also plays a role), they will have direct access to the information about whether their police force is following their voluntary contract.

Onto the supposed issue of the incentives being wrong, I think that that is ridiculous. Let's compare the incentives of the current public police system with the incentives of private police forces. With a public police force you are forced to support them financially because you're coerced to do so, and so the incentives for the public police force is then to continue to gain support for itself by further restricting the freedoms of the people. With a private police force the incentive is to help the customer and have a good reputation. You say that it boils down to land ownership? A police force can start up anywhere and there is more then enough room for a contract between the DRO (who will supply land to the police force, and who supplies land for anyone) and the police force.

The DRO takes care of the land and has no incentive of supplying land to an "evil" police force because then people would break their contract with the DRO, quit supporting them and the DRO would be out of business.

would you still have a court system with judges and rules of evidence and jury trials? if so, who would pay for it? isn't paying a court a conflict of interest? Look, private arbitration works in some cases, specifically when both sides agree on the arbitrator. But when no side can come to an agreement on an arbitrator, who resolves the dispute?

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They would have to agree to a private arbitration. One side can sue the other with their DRO and the other side's DRO would have to choose to comply with the demand of the former.

I disagree, i don't see what the advantage of honesty is in DRO. again, the system is, best case scenario, money makes right. (worst case scenario: Might makes right) The DRO's that make the most money are going to be the ones who rule in favor of the richest people, the people who give them more kickbacks. (Or possibly, even worse, the people who threaten to kill their families)

Furthermore, if the poor people can refuse to use the rich people's DRO's, who's to prevent the rich people from refusing to use any non-crooked DRO? and if no one can agree on a DRO who can resolve the dispute?

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The rich are needed in order to survive in a complex economy. I don't believe in the proletariat / bourgeoisie distinction that Marx made unless the bourgeoisie are supported by the state. If you think that a bad scenario like this would happen in a stateless society then a much worse one should theoretically happen in a statist society because the rich can further get much more benefits from government. You probably understand how the rich can fund a presidential candidate in order to pass laws or regulations that are beneficial to them.

I want to make it clear that I don't believe that libertarian "anarcho-capitalism" would be a utopia. There will be very minor problems but that the problems are much less here than if we were to live in a social democracy.

I think we're getting too many points to argue at once, so i'm going to focus on one strain of this thread for now, i might come back to your other points later.

RichardT said:

They would have to agree to a private arbitration. One side can sue the other with their DRO and the other side's DRO would have to choose to comply with the demand of the former.

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and what if they don't choose to comply with the demand of the former?

and what if they don't choose to comply with the demand of the former?

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I find that a good analogy to DROs is peer reviewed scientific literature. Anything that attempts to be published is reviewed by peers and the garbage is never published.

It depends on whether the former DRO is "good" and if the latter DRO is "good". But a DRO has to be good in the first place in order to be able to exist, I'm assuming that it has decided to all of the sudden become evil.

Situation 1: The first DRO is "good" and the second DRO is "good". An individual attempts to sue with the first DRO. The second DRO will comply with the demand of the first.

Situation 2: The first DRO is "good" but the second DRO is "evil". An individual attempts to sue with the first DRO. The second DRO will refuse to allow a murderer to be represented. Since the first DRO is a legitimate DRO and it has now realized that the second DRO is "evil", we can then isolate the second DRO by not allowing anyone associated with it to use the roads. As I said before, the better DROs will be financed by the people. How rich could an individual possibly be before he has gained a monopoly over one DRO, let alone all of them?

Situation 3: The first DRO is "evil" and the second DRO is "good". An individual attempts to sue with the first DRO. The second DRO won't take the claims of the first DRO seriously and will refuse to comply with the demands of the former.

You can think of DROs as private "governments". They are voluntarily funded instead of forcing their authority on us through taxation.

Interesting.

Let me give you a hypothetical situation.

There's a girl name Jill, who's 16 ( or if you prefer, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, whichever age is most borderline to you).

There's a guy named Bob who is 28.

Jill runs away from home to go live with Bob.

Bob says "Jill is my wife"

Jill's parents don't agree, they think this is rape/kidnapping.

Jill says that Jill's parents beat her. Jill's parents deny this. There is no physical evidence.

Bob's DRO thinks that a 16 year old (or pick whatever age is most borderline for you) is an adult capable of making her own decisions. Jill's Parent's DRO does not agree.

Keep in mind, if this isn't resolved through a DRO quickly, jill's father will come at bob with a shotgun. Hasn't happened yet, but keep that in mind.

How is this situation resolved under the anarcho capitalist model?

and to add more details:

bob lives about 15-20 miles away from jill's father's house, but in a different neighborhood.

80% of the people in bob's neighborhood suscribe to bob's DRO and generally agree with bob on this. similarily, 80% of people in jill's parent's neighborhood suscribe to jill's parent's DRO and generally agree with jill's parents on this.

The DRO would have to comply to allow a court decision. I think that that would be the best solution.

RichardT said:

The DRO would have to comply to allow a court decision. I think that that would be the best solution.

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There are two courts, one in bob's neighborhood, and one in jill's father's neighborhood. Since the age someone becomes an adult is well established precedent in either court, everyone already knows how each court will rule. According to established precedent, bob's court will almost certainly rule for bob and jill's father's court will almost certainly rule for jill's father. Which court makes the ruling?

Nathan45 said:

There are two courts, one in bob's neighborhood, and one in jill's father's neighborhood. Since the age someone becomes an adult is well established precedent in either court, everyone already knows how each court will rule. According to established precedent, bob's court will almost certainly rule for bob and jill's father's court will almost certainly rule for jill's father. Which court makes the ruling?

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They choose a third court to arbitrate. In fact, one might have already been chosen by the two DROs for just such a situation.


eudaimonia,

Mark

RichardT said:

I find that a good analogy to DROs is peer reviewed scientific literature. Anything that attempts to be published is reviewed by peers and the garbage is never published.

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If you ever get the opportunity: find some published researchers (ideally ones who have also reviewed articles themselves), and have a good personal talk with them about the advantages and disadvantages of the peer review system. My experience with those talks (I've spoken somewhat in-depth to 2 professors and 2 senior researchers on the subject) is that the review system is anything but perfect.

Basically, people are always going to look out for their self-interest. Crappy articles get published (especially in crappy journals) because the reviewer didn't have the time to look through the article properly and just gave it the thumbs up. Good articles get rejected because the reviewer didn't feel like trying to understand the article. Good articles get rejected because the reviewer's pet theory is attacked by the article. Good articles get rejected because the reviewer's own research is extremely similar, and the reviewer wants the scoop.

Sure, the multiple reviewers should help weed out those problems. And most researchers will not be consciously rejecting articles for the stated reasons. But still stuff like that happens, and it breeds ill-feelings, misunderstandings, rivalries and grudges. And that in the world of smart, 'rational' scientists who all follow the scientific method.

Now imagine your society where various groups of morons with machine guns are supposed to provide the security of private citizens. Add in the fact that said morons will be jobless and starve to death if their little protection company goes bankrupt.

Do you really think that this is in any way going to end well? When even those calm, reasoned scientists can't make a voluntary system work perfectly, why should a group of average guys with guns do any better?

The big thing is that "evil" and "good" companies don't exist. They're all various shades of gray. Just like normal humans. Everyone is willing to sacrifice the happiness/rights of others, to further their own goals (as the Christians like saying: Jesus was the only exception). The only difference is to which levels they will stoop for their own profit.

(damn I should be studying for an exam tomorrow.. oh well)

Something I just thought of is the nature of the "power equilibrium" of an anarchy versus a democracy (and then preferable one with a bunch of branches in government).


First the terms "unstable equilibrium" and "stable equilibrium":

A drinking glass is in a stable equilibrium. If you give it a soft nudge at the top, it might tilt a bit, but as soon as you let go, it will naturally go back to it's starting position.

When you manage to balance a writing pen vertically on it's tip, it's in an unstable equilibrium. If you give it a soft nudge, it will tilt a bit, and then naturally fall down.

(ok, so technically all real world items are locally stable and globally unstable but uh.. just ignore that for now.)

In an anarchy, when something goes wrong (say... a fight breaks out between two of the companies), the tendency would be for the problems to escalate. Grudges and rivalries will increase over time. As the companies strive to get better profits, more and more questionable methods of getting those profits will be accepted (and/or hidden from the public). Smaller companies will merge to form ever larger companies (larger companies have more power, and when the neighbouring companies are merging, you'll be forced to do the same to stay in business), eventually resulting in monopolies. A system that may start as a good idea (standing upright), will at the slightest nudge come crashing down. An anarchy is an unstable equilibrium.

In a democracy however, and especially one with clearly defined and powerful branches of government, that kind of thing is a lot less likely to happen. When corruption in the executive branch starts to pile up, parliament can force a cleaning operation. When the winner of the elections is suspected of having rigged the election, the army can kick them out and write out new elections. When the army is seen doing unjustifiable things, the monarch can have the generals imprisoned. When the monarch is seen doing unjustifiable thing, the parliament can proclaim her as insane and unfit to rule, to be replaced by someone else..

Basically, pretty serious misunderstandings in a democracy can be solved via peaceful means, after which the government will again function as intended. Thus a democracy is often a stable equilibrium; when something happens to disturb the system, it will restore itself to it's old state. (just like the drinking glass example, this is only true localy ofcourse; when a big enough disturbance is applied, the system will still fall down. But it's certainly a lot more stable than the vertically balanced pen)

Eudaimonist said:

They choose a third court to arbitrate. In fact, one might have already been chosen by the two DROs for just such a situation.


eudaimonia,

Mark

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simply put, what if they don't? For all practical purposes the neighboring DRO is a foreign country, I'd assume this would be similar to a negotiation with Mexico. Is every DRO going to have treaties and agreement with every other DRO? the impression i get is that there are a lot of DRO's. it seems like they would all be a conflict of competing precedents. And there is no "Supreme court" to lay down the have the final say, and if there was why would all DRO's recognize it?

People are very stubborn anyway, they're not always going come to some agreement or compromise.

...

also, Richard: you talk about how DRO's are "peer reviewed". But the problem is that people are dumb as rocks when it comes to pre-conceived notions. The idea that people can agree to basic rules through peer review, on something that is ultimately subjective like morality and governance, seems impossible to me. Sure, scientists can come to general agreement about objective things, but can they convince the public? Furthermore, i don't understand how peer review would even work if you moved from the objective (science) the the subjective (politics). Scientific truth exists and there is a proper scientific method, but there is no "right" way to govern a country so how would they come to any agreement?

Really, RichardT would know the mentality better than me... 55% of people in the U.S. don't believe in evolution. That's what happens when peer review hits the general public, it's all Greek to them. So how are they going to judge which DRO is best? Simply, they'll pick whichever one their parents pick, or whichever one their church picks, or whichever one their respected community leaders pick. that's assuming the peer reviewers can even agree on basic methodology... in scientific circles you have to follow the scientific method, but there is no such thing as a scientific method for politics.

Peer review also does not overcome factionalism, there will be factionalism, lots of it. When given a choice between believing someone with the best evidence and most consistent views, or following your own church/social group like a sheep in the herd, most people will pick the later because they simply don't know any better and don't have time to think about these things

Furthermore, i could see some DRO's, ones associated with specific regional churches for example, becoming very very powerful such that they could be in a position to intimidate others who do not comply. They'd essentially become the de-facto government, anyone who went against them would be shunned in the same method that "evil" dro's are shunned by your model. Actually, the people who went against them would probably just disappear mysteriously. It goes back to the power vacuum.

Nathan45 said:

simply put, what if they don't?

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Simply put, what if nations don't and they go to war? What if a nation divides in a civil war and the two sides don't negotiate?

For all practical purposes the neighboring DRO is a foreign country, I'd assume this would be similar to a negotiation with Mexico. Is every DRO going to have treaties and agreement with every other DRO?

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In theory, yes. If they don't, then they have incentives to do so. If they can't agree to do this, then perhaps they will go to war, just as nation-states do.

Anarchocapitalism doesn't claim to be a utopia. It's just an alternate social arrangement that might possibly lean more towards freedom and peace than nation-state systems.

It's also possible that some nation-state systems have an edge. Personally, I favor constitutional republics, mainly because they have been tested in more modern settings than anarchocapitalist-like societies.

Medieval Iceland was a bit like a pre-capitalist anarchocapitalism. It lasted in a reasonably peaceful condition for maybe three centuries, which isn't bad at all. But this isn't quite modern enough for a test of the concept that would matter to us.


eudaimonia,

Mark

Really, RichardT would know the mentality better than me... 55% of people in the U.S. don't believe in evolution. That's what happens when peer review hits the general public, it's all Greek to them. So how are they going to judge which DRO is best? Simply, they'll pick whichever one their parents pick, or whichever one their church picks, or whichever one their respected community leaders pick. that's assuming the peer reviewers can even agree on basic methodology... in scientific circles you have to follow the scientific method, but there is no such thing as a scientific method for politics.

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It's for this reason that I believe that anarchy is better than democratic government. If 55% of people in the united states don't believe in evolution it's possible for them to vote in a presidential candidate that will remove evolution from public school curriculum, or put labels on textbooks claiming that it's "just a theory". In an anarchic society, this imposition would be impossible.

RichardT said:

It's for this reason that I believe that anarchy is better than democratic government. If 55% of people in the united states don't believe in evolution it's possible for them to vote in a presidential candidate that will remove evolution from public school curriculum, or put labels on textbooks claiming that it's "just a theory". In an anarchic society, this imposition would be impossible.

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and that hasn't happened, furthermore in in anarchistic society there is no public school curriculum to begin with.

a functioning democracy is not one where the majority simply rules by fiat. what you have are checks and balances on elected representatives, not simply a vote on every issue. In addition, there is the constitution which cannot be violated even by majority vote, you need a rather large supermajority to amend the constitution.

Furthermore this isn't really in danger of happening. IIRC i read a poll on evolution and 55% of people don't believe in evolution, but about 30% would be less likely to vote for a politician who doesn't believe in evolution. including 15% much less likely. The 55% who don't believe in evolution are much less committed than the ones who do.

Also, the general population may be stupid but the judiciary isn't. Intelligent design simply does not hold up in a court of law, it's been shown repeatedly.

I don't see how this wouldn't be better in anarchy. Living in Texas, i'm sure a lot of the local DRO's would basically be made up of christian fundies. In my area, they'd probably ban teaching evolution outright if they could get away with it. I live in a very conservative area, actually, 80% of my county voted for Bush and about the same voted for McCain. I really don't want to know what kind of laws they'd come up with and impose on me if the federal government weren't around to tell them "Hell no". But at least i don't live in an inner city... the people running the show there would probably be drug dealers and street gangs...

One thing to remember is that in anarchy it isn't one person: one vote, it's one violent person: one vote. Ultimately, what you think doesn't matter unless you're willing to back it up with action by sticking your neck on the line. So i'd expect the street gangs to basically take over the inner city simply because i doubt anyone else would have the courage to stand against them.

I wouldn't expect moderates to take over during anarchy simply because moderates don't have combat experience. I wouldn't expect a pragmatist to take over, because a pragmatist would be looking after his own skin and would be easily intimidated. So i think the people who would come out of the woodwork and take over the DRO's, would be the most crazy fanatical types immaginable, you'd basically have the christian dominionists on one end and the violent criminal organizations on the other.

at least that's what i think would expect to happen if the government ever magically disappeared.

I don't see how this would be better in anarchy. Living in Texas, i'm sure a lot of the local DRO's would basically be made up of christian fundies. In my area, they'd probably ban teaching evolution outright if they could get away with it.

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Those private schools have every right to ban evolution from their curriculum, but how will any of their students get higher education? The industry wouldn't fund a Creationist school. The difference here is that if a ban on evolution were to pass in a democratic country, the schools would get funding from taxes. And that makes the difference.

I live in a very conservative area, actually, 80% of my county voted for Bush and about the same voted for McCain. I really don't want to know what kind of laws they'd come up with and impose on me if the federal government weren't around to tell them "Hell no". But at least i don't live in an inner city... the people running the show there would probably be drug dealers and street gangs...

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I don't think that you're going to have to worry about local gangs or even the fact that most of your county are fundamentalists. You could yourself choose a non local DRO, and I'm still certain that there will be secular DROs around.

One thing to remember is that in anarchy it isn't one person: one vote, it's one violent person: one vote. Ultimately, what you think doesn't matter unless you're willing to back it up with action by sticking your neck on the line. So i'd expect the street gangs to basically take over the inner city simply because i doubt anyone else would have the courage to stand against them.

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In anarchy, every penny votes. The incentive is there not to support your local street gang but support a professional "multi-national".

I wouldn't expect moderates to take over during anarchy simply because moderates don't have combat experience. I wouldn't expect a pragmatist to take over, because a pragmatist would be looking after his own skin and would be easily intimidated. So i think the people who would come out of the woodwork and take over the DRO's, would be the most crazy fanatical types immaginable, you'd basically have the christian dominionists on one end and the violent criminal organizations on the other.

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I think it will be entrepreneurs who are simply trying to keep their customers happy and I don't see why it should be anything else. I say this because I understand the success that globalization has had in developing countries.

"The percentage of people living on less than $2 a day has decreased greatly in areas affected by globalization, whereas poverty rates in other areas have remained largely stagnant. In East-Asia, including China, the percentage has decreased by 50.1% compared to a 2.2% increase in Sub-Saharan Africa."



SOURCE: World Bank, Poverty Estimates, 2002

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization

What I'm trying to say is that if you can choose between any DRO, there will definitely be secular and rational DROs around to protect your rights. Creationist schools will be less popular because they won't get as much funding from the industry and no one will support a local gang.