A functioning Agorist society?

Miscellaneous General
1

Hello all.
I have recently been exposed to a lot of anarchic/agoristicthinking, and it got ME thinking, is it the right way to go? As a person who believes in genuine liberty, I don’t have very far to go, BUT, I am also a statist (don’t choke me just yet), in-so-far-as I’ve never been exposed to anything different and haven’t really thought about other alternatives, other than in simple, short trains of thought such as “but if there is no State money (taxing), where would roads, health care and education come from?” etc. I live in Sweden, we have the highest taxes in the world (as far as I know), and I have a hard time imagining society without this facet (taxing that is), not to mention the presence of a State and Government. Why? Because in my opinion and to my knowledge Sweden is the best country in the world (of course, it is not perfect; frankly I hate it, but I’d rather have HIV than terminal cancer), and I am not saying that because I live there (I am anti-nationalist and anti-patriotist and so on and so forth), but because I know what a low-taxing society is like.
And just for the record, don’t think for a second that I am a socialist, anywhere on the political spectrum (technically, I am, but I do not identify with it in the least).

Let’s make a few sweeping generalising comparisons to the US, shall we? I’ll be talking, largely, out of my ass, but I will be making a coherent point.
**Vacation & sick days:
–Sweden: legislated vacation, 5 weeks per year. If you’re sick, you get to stay at home, and from day 2 and onwards you get 80% (thereabout) of your salary from your company of employment. All national holidays are legislated days off work. After about 20 sick days, the company doesn’t have to pay the salary anymore. This is where the State kicks in and gives economic support (although I think it is a lower percentage than 80, it is still enough for the person to sustain their life and have a home), even if you’re sick for a long time (for example if you need to undergo surgery and subsequent recovery, which the State pays for by the way).
–America: Not sure if it’s legislated or not, but it varies depending on where you work. 3 weeks vacation is not uncommon and many people also have to use their vacation days when they’re sick. Some also have to include national holidays in their vacation. Some people don’t get any sick days until they’ve worked for a company for one year or more, and even so, it’s not unusual to have a small limit of sick days (e.g 7 days per year)

**Health care:
–Sweden: Close to, if not everything, is free for persons under 18 years of age - dental care, therapy sessions, health checkups and so on. Adults are not allowed to receive such help for free, but the price is usually very small. Hospital visits and medicine costs (for people of all ages), but is very cheap. Also, if the price reaches a certain height, the State again subsidises. This “certain height” isn’t exactly high either.
Yes, there are a few private clinics, but many are worthless. Why? Because, to save money, they treat their patients like shit (re-using syringes, misdiagnosing and other mischievious idiocy, along with all the typical traits of profit-hungry, relentless corporations). State-owned clinics are superior. Why? Because they are non-profit. Being non-profit, they don’t have to worry about saving expenses or making profit, and the doctors and nurses etc are guaranteed their paycheck. They may still be the same assholes deep down, but at least then it won’t affect other people for the worse.
–America: Everything (except possibly Emergency Room cases) has a price, and a high one at that. Many people cannot afford health care and so have to “refrain” from surgery or medicine to improve their conditions. There’s health insurance and dental insurance though - BUT, only 57% of the population in the United States has dental benefit coverage. Some 96% of those who do have dental coverage get it through their employer. And according to the United States Census Bureau, approximately 84% of Americans have health insurance; some 60% obtain it through an employer, while about 9% purchase it directly. For argument’s sake, let’s say that these percentages are fair. Even if they are fair, we’re still dealing with… insurance companies. The insurance industry is quite known for lying to its customers, abusing insurance contracts and so on. I know, there ARE non-profit insurance companies, but in an agorist society, a non-profit company is very close to being a paradox. And even if it wasn’t, who or what would make sure that a company that claims to be non-profit actually operates as such?

**Education (university):
–Sweden: Most of it is entirely free, except the very few private schools that exist. The private schools aren’t necessarily better in any way. University is free except for the literature.
–America: University is extremely expensive. There are community colleges, and they are relatively cheap, but are often thought of as inferior, which they technically are.

**Poverty:
–Sweden: If your job is minimum wage and you can’t make the rent, or if you’re unemployed, you receive state subsidies so that you can get by.
–America: Pretty much fuck-all.

Obviously (or not), I am very keen on finding the best political system, and I am very interested in apostating (no pun intended) statism. Realising that society is even shittier than I already hold in opinion would be a relief (it’s just how I work, hah).

So, my question is; without a State, without a Government, and without taxation, how does a society (or lack thereof) function? Will this not spiral into chaos? Theoretically, it will not. For example, if everyone behaved like I did, everything’d be tippity top splendid. But let’s get real; most people are assholes, in one way or another, and there are many thieves and other idiots looking to ruin your day. So I ask again; how?

Consider the following scenario:
A person of low financial standing is run over by a drunk driver, and is hurt badly. While not lethally wounded, the person has to be hospitalised. The questions I bring forth are thusly;
1. Who shall see to it so that the driver is punished for her behaviour? Or is punishment not compatible with agorism?
2. Who shall pay for the wounded person’s health care?
2b. Reasonably, the drunk driver should pay for the health care. But who is to enforce that this is actualised? And for what purpose? Honour? Non-profit?
2c. Perhaps a hospital should cover the health costs, seeing as the wounded cannot afford it. But then again, why should they cover it? Because they feel like it? They’ll lose money.
2d. Perhaps the wounded should pay for health care. Even if the person was rich, it would be very unfair because he didn’t exactly choose to get run over by a car.

2

As for your post, you have a lot going on in there. Where do things come from without taxes? Good question, where did people get health care, education and roads before taxes?

3

I’m not in the mood for another debate, but all I shall say is that if people are “assholes” that leaves statism in no better, and perhaps even a worse position than before. The first order of business would be to dispel the misconceptions you have about both “agorism” and the oh so benevolent tyrant called the state (the US doesn’t have “aid” for the poor? get real), and to stop demonizing profit, as if it’s some evil bogeyman. As for agorism…

All I can say is fuck the State till it bleeds to death. It deserves no mercy.

-Jon

4

As a person who believes in genuine liberty, I don’t have very far to go, BUT, I am also a statist (don’t choke me just yet), in-so-far-as I’ve never been exposed to anything different and haven’t really thought about other alternatives

The fact that you are aware both of what Statism implies, even in its minarchical variants, is first of all a vast advance over what the majority of people are willing to admit. Most people are statists precisely because they have not been exposed to alternatives, and there is certainly nothing wrong with ignorance. What’s wrong with many people is that, about certain things they are emotionally attached to, indoctrinated hostility and conformism overcome their ability to recognize their ignorance. Being able to say, “because I don’t know” is the first step toward understanding, which is pretty obvious when talking about Honda driveshafts but seems to evade many people when discussing philosophy. So, Kudos on this.

“but if there is no State money (taxing), where would roads, health care and education come from?”

This is a common and obvious question that many anarchists have run into so many times that it can make us irritable. This question, as well as many others, can be answered by understanding this: just because the state does provide certain services it does not follow that only the state can provide those services. And it certainly does not imply that the state is the best at providing those services, even if it could. Your Scandinavian paradise makes an excellent example in contrast. In countries where health-care and banking are not hyper-regulated or out-right owned, as they are in most states, health-care is none-the-less available, to more people and at lower cost. From an economic argumentative standpoint we can actually predict this outcome, the empirical case is actually an example of something which is economically inevitable.

This is true for all of your arguments regarding the state. Each pro-state argument can simply be taken up as a particular example of a fallacy. Once one comprehends libertarian and economic principles as such debates over prostitution and privatizing forests in Latvia are revealed as the content-less and inconsistent rubbish they are.

Another flaw in many of your examples is contrasting the US economy with the Swedish as though the US were more ‘pro-market’. It is not. The American economy is a heavily fascistic, pro-big business hellishly regulated mire of bureacratic red tape and massive taxation. In fact, Sweden is far more open in its markets as far as entry and regulation goes. It has some State-operated sectors as well as incredible taxation, but the US economy is far more regulated and cartelized.

I’ll post some article links which answer many of your specific questions, but to answer all of the possible infinitude of ‘what-if’ scenarios one needs an understanding of general economics.

But Wouldn’t Warlords Take Over?

Private Roads

For a New Liberty - (PDF) Sure, it’s a whole book, but it answers many of your questions fairly well. You can also read up on different chapters according to your interest, like healthcare, education, defense.

5

They didn’t. I think it is a moot point because anything prior to the 1900s was pretty much shite as far as social services are concerned, would you not agree?

Yes, it would. I’m a rookie and am bound to not know everything about the subject. I’m still learning, and bloody enthused in doing so. Give me some time.

I clearly stated that I was talking out my ass. I was making a point, by comparing a low-tax to a high-tax nation. Did my point get through to you? You need not get hung up on details.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you; I have somewhat of a problem with money in general. Possession of money in large sums leads to nothing more than greed in most cases, and greed always leads to mistreatment of others. There was a study made in 2006 about the affects of money, in which the results were, that the mere thought of money makes people selfish. Read it if you so incline; http://www.livescience.com/health/061116_money_matters.html .

I do not have a problem with the making of profit itself, just the means used to achieve it. You HAVE heard of customer mistreatment, right? A colourful example, albeit a silly one, is advertisement. Most often it is intrusive (infesting many webpages, getting stuffed down your mailbox, and sometimes injected inconspicously via viral marketing), and of low veracity, sometimes ridiculously so.

My constant rambling about “assholes” as I like to call them, relates to common decency and honesty. My general theory is that if you can get away with something, you’d do it. I am not talking about murder (a classical example), but pettier things than that. In my mind, intent and principle is very important, and the actual action isn’t to be judged by its own merits. I have heard of more than one case where sleeping victims have been subjects of sexual misconduct. That should hopefully provide some sort of a clue. Also keep in mind that humans lie on average 25% each day (as in, 25% of everything they say any given day). Most of it is probably harmless but you get the general idea, right?

I should probably clarify that I am deeply suspicious of any State, and that I am beginning to understand the notion of taxation as theft. I am not a complete fool, nor should you take me for one.

6

I’ll be perfectly honest with you; I have somewhat of a problem with money in general.

I can not emphasize enough that money is not responsible for anyone’s actions, it is a means to accomplish ends. It is not that money has corrupted people, it is that politics has corrupted people and consequentially corrupted money. It is my personal opinion that money is perhaps the single most useful invention in human history. Although technical and exacting, Economic Calcualation in the Socialist Commonwealth is an excellent paper for understanding why money is necessary. Some of the terminology and argument might be difficult, but it involves no graphs or mathematical equations. For a fuller analysis of money itself, read Mises’ Theory of Money and Credit.

I do not have a problem with the making of profit itself, just the means used to achieve it. You HAVE heard of customer mistreatment, right?

Government priveledge and market regulation allows this to take place, by distorting the consequences of the behaviour. Likewise, the Capital Heavy Conglomerates rely directly and indirectly on the Statefor their position. Libertarians are likewise concerned with the means. Insofar as the physical integrity of someone’s property is not damaged, then it is acceptable. So long as no property is violated, no crime has occured.

7

I never said this, but what is the alternative? My angle is that, if a service isn’t regulated by a third “objective” party, how can one trust it? How can one ensure its quality?

Well, I wasn’t comparing markets, only the effects of taxation (and again, somewhat sloppily so). I really cannot believe that everything is about market, money, economics. I think your flaw (perhaps I am to blame for viewing it as a flaw) is that you view everything through an economical lense. I myself am simply about freedom, anti-conformism, anti-censorship and anti-establishment. Personal freedom, simply put. I view that people should be able to do whatever they want to do, as long as unconsenting parties aren’t involved. If I enjoy torturing someone who enjoys being tortured, then I should be allowed to do so, no matter its “absurdity” or whichever, because all involved parties have given their consent. This is the type of reasoning I apply to everything.

Is there really only an economical standpoint? I am generally not interested in that particular science, although I do find intruiging qualities in it, such as applying the “economical way” of thinking in other political sciences. I am horrible at maths for one which I think somewhat deters my ability to “understand” economics. Is it possible to discuss or describe libertarianism in jargon other than economical?

Thank you for the links, I was going to search for books later on, perhaps the one you linked to will be the one I read first.

I guess all I’m trying to do is to get a general understanding of libertarianism, anarchism, agorism and what-have-you. I am interested in the constant demonisation of the State (just like all roads lead to Rome, it seems as if everything can be blamed on the State in the end). In all honesty, I discern hints of tinfoilhattery in that way of reasoning. If agorism was to be included in school literature, how would it be explained to children age 16, age 13, age 10?

8

The most important thing to emphasis about the US is that it is NOT a total Free Market Economy, it is more a Corporatistic Economy. Big Business and the Government collude to regulate Vacation/Sick Days, Health Care, Education, and yes even Poverty. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying businesses are bad, just the collusion between business and government is what drags the whole system down. Left to the Free Market, the US would benefit more in all those arenas.

9

I have full respect for the usefulness of money and its need to exist.

I cannot disprove your claim concerning corruption, but I shall not support it either. It sounds plausible enough, but seeing as the cause and effect are so tightly woven together it needs further analysis before a conclusion should be drawn in full. I suppose one attempt at rebuttal would be to ask about when there were no politics to speak of, in the current sense. As far as I know wealth has been coveted since the dawn of humankind, or perhaps the dawn of trade.

10

I never said this, but what is the alternative? My angle is that, if a service isn’t regulated by a third “objective” party, how can one trust it?

There is a fundamental flaw in your analysis here. The government consists of nothing but individuals pursuing their own ends. The government is NOT an objective third party, and never could be. Now you have to ask yourself why would making people practically immune to culpability and able to excercise the use of force to obtain what they want going to improve their character. At least in an anarchist society no one ideologically grants the ‘right’ of others to rob him, each robbery must be an act of force or stealth which will likely draw the ire of the victims neighbours. The state’s power lies in its ideology, and it is the worst offender which ever has existed of human life, liberty and happiness.

I really cannot believe that everything is about market, money, economics.

Do not think of markets and economics as simply stock markets, auto dealerships and coins with dead presidents upon them. Economics is a branch of praxeology, of the actions of individual human beings. Every voluntary human action is within the ‘market’, some of these actions involve monetary exchange (which allows economic calculation) and some do not. The libertarian rule is that no one be agressed against, neither libertarianism nor economics purport that man is an robot driven by mindless acquisativeness, in every moment of his life a man chooses between all options and values available to him. He may value candy over a night with his brother or the other way around, but no matter what his choice is it is economizing action.

The State is, from this perspective, simply someone who forces undesired agreements (Your money or your life; do this or we will kill you; do this and we will kill you) and prevents other people from making mutually desireable agreements. The only question, I think, can be on the plausability of enforcement. But both advanced and casual answers have been written from economic and philosophic perspectives; many are available on this site and elsewhere.

If agorism was to be included in school literature, how would it be explained to children age 16, age 13, age 10?

In general, Agorism is an anarchistic strategy. It promotes the use of ‘counter-economics’, which is people using voluntary means of subversion, avoidance and paralell institutions (IE, free market alternatives to State services) to undermine the authority, power and appeal of the State. In essence it strives to impliment the very institutions and practices that market anarchists expect in a free society. It also eschews and rejects political methods (such as the libertarian party) as essentially antithetical to the purpose. Now, to summarise:

10: You should respect other people’s freedom, but you should not respect tyrrany.

13: It is acceptable to use means which are called ‘illegal’ so long as they are not aggressive. But you should always consider your well being and the consequences of defying unjust authority, since what we want is precisely your own freedom to enjoy your life.

16: If the 16 year old was intelligent (As you seem to be) I would simply make the same argument and references I have made.

11

No. This is a myth, usually propagated by modern public schools. There’s tons of literature on this topic at the Mises website, as well as Cato’s…

As a suggestion, limit what you want to ask to one particular topic at a time, or ask for sources if it’s a whole lot, then come back and discuss it. It’s pointless discussing statistics &c. because a lot of it is meaningless if one is unaware of the correct theory.

It’s a big mistake, though. The US taxes mostly through inflation. Even so, the US is a high tax nation. The total incidence of taxation on both the richest and the poorest can amount in excess of 50%, according to the Tax Foundation. Anything above 10 - 20% is no longer a low tax nation, IMO. That the US ranks highly on the index of economic freedom is troubling, as it shows just how bad most of the world is.

Money merely services a need, that is, it is the most widely exchangeable good of all, and thus overcomes the deficiencies of barter. You may be thinking of it purely in terms of paper, but any good can serve as money (not literally - some are more suited than others), and in the absence of money acquisitiveness will merely be spread over to other goods. So the use of studies like this is dubious at best, propagandistic and ignorant at worst. Why one may become more “selfish” (what does the word even mean here? all human action is selfish, in a sense) when thinking of money may have little to do with the person and everything to do with the society in which they were raised, and a society in which the political means are present and a zero-sum mentality towards wealth creation exists, will no doubt exhibit such tendencies.

Then object to the means, not the actual concept. Profit is merely revenues in excess of cost and is manifest in all human activitiy. Fraud, theft (incl. taxation) &c. can all be used to turn over a “profit”, but in this case it is the means, not the activity in general, that is objectionable.

I think it’s ridiculous to take the imperfection of humans and use it as a standard by which to declare they’re “assholes”. Yeah, most people do fall short of what they could achieve, but are not malicious enough, IMO, to be called that.

-Jon

12

You’re thinking of neoclassical economics, which is heavily mathematical in its (stupid) attempt to mimick physics, to the point of postulating deliberately unrealistic premises merely for predicitive purposes. Austrian economics is subsumed under the general sciences of human action (what most would term social sciences), and thus does not divorce economic action from all other action. Here’s a good essay on this by Mises. Libertarians rely heavily on economics to answer why they oppose the State on a functional level, but they also use political philosophy to oppose it on a moral level. Austrian economics has, to an extent, a growing corpus of sociological writings which bolster its economic analysis, such as Hoppe’s refutation of Marxian class analysis.

-Jon

13

(off topic)

No. Way.

AbFab popping up @ the mises forum?

I am slightly jealous you got 1st. Cheers anyways :smiley:

14

As a side note, for some actual info from my macro book, the USA taxation level continously falls short of 30% of the GDP – and Bush lowered it to 25% though he does like to borrow and print it. :slight_smile: Sweden, on the other hand, has tax revenues that make up 50% of the GDP. I’m not sure about the low and high taxes description, but when compared to the rest of the OCDE countries, it’s accurate to say that the USA collects the least taxes, and Sweden the most.

EDIT: most countries have a strong central government that tends to set tax rates across districts, cities and stuff. I wonder how accurate this data is for the USA. It could just refer to the federal government… In any case, skribb, maybe you’d like to compare Sweden to a country closer to yours. The lower taxes countries in Europe are Ireland and Switzerland whose taxes revenues are close to 30% of their GDP.

15

Hmm, I can’t find an up-to-date version of the study I want, but from more recent Tax Foundation ones I see that the highest income households in the US (it doesn’t take much to be one) pay nearly 50% in taxes. That is not taking into account the inflation tax, which impoverishes nearly everyone. I recall from a study in FANL that Rothbard quotes by the Tax Foundation, that the total incidence of taxation on the poorest (remember, wealth redistribution is generally from productive to nonproductive, not rich to poor, and so it occurs within income bands, in the US) as well as the richest is around 50%. Combined with its corporate tax rate (which can reach 35%), it does have a heavy tax incidence. As for the US’ relatively low proportion of taxes to GDP, that is probably because of how it chooses to finance its debts (i.e. inflation as opposed to direct confiscation.)

-Jon

16

Jon, something that I think is specific to USA is that it uses a lot of direct taxation (income and corporate taxes). Most countries however choose to use indirect taxation, and diversify a lot, because it helps to hide more the size of government. I think this is why in movies and stuff you hear a lot Americans complaining about taxes, where in Europe people seem to almost forget they exist, even though they are constantly hitting on them.

Anyway, I only have data on this for Portugal here, where a bit more than 60% of taxation is indirect. VAT (general sales tax) alone accounts for close to 40% of all tax revenue.

By the way, I think you are misuing tax incidence there when you say the USA has “a heavy tax incidence”, though the Rothbard part makes sense. Tax incidence is the study of how a tax hits the several groups. For instance, from putting a tax of 5% on apples, it doesn’t necessarly follow that the price of apples will increase by that ammount. Apples being elastic, consumers can just switch to another fruit, so apple farmers (assuming their land is only good for apples) may be forced to worker a couple more hours a week in order to absorb the tax.

17

The wikipedia seems to have this data as well: tax revenues as per GDP. (it seems they mix the OCDE data from other sources.)

Tax rates around the world:

USA » Income: 15-39% + 0-12% (states). Corporate: 0-35% + 0-10.3% + 0-7.65%. Sales: 0-10.25% (states)

Sweden » Income: 28%. Corporate: 0-60%. Sales: 25% (12% and 6% for some)

It would be nice to have some averages or the revenue per GDP of the several taxes, but the data suggests the USA favors direct taxes, while Sweden (as does most of the world) seems to go for indirect ones. Indirect ones tend to be of a regressive nature, though there are some ways to fight that (like those 12% and 6% rates in Sweden for more vital goods), but they help hiding the size of government by making every producer operating as the IRS office for all effects. People here get that notion that the government services are very cheap, because they get a lot when framed in IRS terms. And I suppose this may help explain why Americans seem to see their government as a big monster (even though it is true that it isn’t that much smaller than what we have here, it is significatively so).

18

THE STATE IS A CONTRADICTION ON A GRAND SCALE! How harmless could the state be if it is run by humans who lie a quarter of the time on average. How much do Congressman lie? The Hobbesian analysis of humans needing a state is a self defeating argument. If humans are selfish and evil, why would a group of humans with complete power be a good thing for other weaker humans.

This can be said for the same people who argue that private charity would not work in absence of taxation because most people do not care. The very fact that one advocates government stealing money, which is always the majority opinion, proves that one cares. It is usually the greedy people who advocate State charity, so they do not have to GIVE money to charity. Having something forced upon you is easier than deciding for yourself. Greedy people use the excuse that they have no choice when they are taxed, so they can hide their guilt, if they have any, of not giving to charity by free will.

19

So in summary to the original opening line of this thread, there is no functioning agorist society, nor will there be one in any foreseeable future.

20

A pure Agorist society in the near future? I don’t remember that being stated here. That would be too idealistic; would not the Agorist society exist regardless of whether the State exists or not, and further, would exist alongside the state society, until the state society is largley deemed “ancient”, “ineffcient”, and regarded has having too many inherent problems?

Mind you, if you take free association into consideration, there would most likley always be some type of remnant of the state leftover in certain communities of individuals that wish to band together to rule themsevles as they see fit (i.e. a community participating in fractional reserve banking or wage slavery?).

I see Agorism eventually being a method of various communities to communicate with one another while being able to maintain free association. The State, I’d think, would be so dilluted & warped that it would barley exist as it would today. What point in time that occurs though, is beyond my ability to speculate, admitelly.