Ok, I understand the principles of anarchy, and completely agree with them. You are getting no argument from me, I just have a question: are they applicable? The ideas of no government works completely on these boards because we are dealing with a select group of highly intelligent people who educated themselves on these topics. An anarchistic society composed only of people like this would succeed in every sense. Yet, as so many of you are aware, the world is full of sheep looking for a shepard. Would anarchy and completely free market work in the world today? I think the transition couldnt be quickly made, it would be like the matrix; you cannot free a mind that grew up in the system. The alternative I suppose is a slow transition similar to what people such as Ron Paul preach, though my understanding is many of the people on here dislike his minimalistic approach. So, apart from founding a completely new country consisting only of similar beleivers, how is it possible to spread this viewpoint? Sure, educated people seek out this information every day, and many become beleivers (such as myself, and many of you), but there are people who either dont care, or are simply not smart enough to understand. They want big brother, the idea of freedom is appaling to them. So, how is anarchy possible in a world with thousands of years of big government engraining itself into our minds?
I was expecting the usual “anarchism is great in theory but it’s just that!” nonsense to begin with, but thankfully it wasn’t that.
Actually, I agree with you to some extent. As long as people want the state, they’ll get exactly that. The state is a parasite and must by its nature constitute a minority. As such the only way it can conceivably stay in power is through the support of the enslaved. Hence university professors, the statues in memory of presidents and the welfare.
As such if the people desired anarchism, they’d get it. If we removed the state and people wanted statism, we’d get it. So in a sense we’d have to have enough anti statists to get rid of the government in the first place, so it would be sustainable.
Of course, people are immoral and stupid to such an extent that seeing past the state is impossible for them. Exactly why I favour secession as a means of getting rid of the state, I don’t want these fools in my society.
We have to form an alternative government and offer people a new choice.
Don`t be so judgamental. It is precisley because the wast mayority of people recognise they are not the smartest, most able person in the whole world that anarchy could work. It is precisley because free men will stil look for guidance and take into account opinions of those more thoughtful than themselves that there would be order not chaos in anarchy.
Infact every single person in some field of life recognises that there are around him his betters. For example I freely admit I am not the world`s greatest cook and will gladly turn on the TV and follow some cooking show. You could say that makes me a sheep that lacks independence but I say that keeps me from burning dinner.
Anarchy is a lack of coercion, not a lack of leadership. But there must be leaders, not rulers. There is a difference. Leaders do not need a coercive state apparatus behind them to be heard and acknowledged.
And it seems forming an alternative government is the solusion. Seccesation is the only answer I can come up with as well. Yet many people here say that violence should never be the answer, and inevitably to secede from a nation would require open rebellion and bloodshed. A government would never willingly allow a group to secede, take the US civil war for example. As well, we support free choice for everyone, so what of the people in our new nation that didnt want to leave the old? They have property rights, how can we force them to either leave or join us? I’m conflicted myself because I beleive that those who would use a gun deserve a gun, thus I have no issue with open revolt against a government. Washington holds a gun to my head all my life, I will point one right back without issue. But it is the people who dont want to leave that I have an issue with pointing my gun at. We wouldnt be any better than any other government if we kicked people out.
I know you may make the argument that we will give them a choice, and they can choose for themselves to stay with the old or join with us. But the governments would never allow this. I’m sure that I’m firing a thousand directions at once, and if there’s some reading I should do please point me in the right direction, because somehow it almost seems that reform and slowly tearing down the government we already have is the only real solution. Would a government that was constitution and nothing more be acceptable to you out there?
Violence is the answer to violence, but you must be careful. Just because violence may be rightful, that does not mean it is wise. A frontal assault on the state will be swiftly crushed. We must take a more subtle approach.
5 Stars. What a fantastic thoughtful thread!
Works on the internet, doesn’t it? I know that is not a perfect example, but I think that some people choose MySpace, some Facebook, and some both says a lot about how voluntary participation could function. One need not be entered in every registry, only the registries they wanted. And with a theoretically low cost of entry, people could form their own associations and registries on demand. Everyone could be a sole proprietor.
Are you asking for leadership, ideas or both?
What people say, and what they want are two different things. Egalitarians are the last ones to open up their homes to the homeless, and to quit their jobs to run a soup kitchen. They prefer to use the mechanism of state to make it appear that they are a driving force behind social justice, than taking the initiative, and making the material sacrifice to actually provide charity.
What I am saying is, everyone resents politicians, but loves Obama. Movie stars are all vacuous and vacant morons, but we flock to the theatre to see their shows. And likewise, people talk a good game about socialism and such, but everyone wants to do drugs, cheat on their taxes and live in a better home than their peers.
This can be appealed to. It is about refining the technique. But in the meantime, I think it is very important to swing intellectuals, because they are the ones who frame the debate.
I don’t want to say too much, but I think that something organized much better than say Waco was, with a LOT more people, and a LOT better (and secretive) capacity to provide news and information from the inside, would be tremendous.
You’d need a lot of resources to facilitate a peaceful secession, but I think it can be done, or at the very least violence can be minimized, and only will there be violence if initiated by the state.
Ideally, peaceful secession should be the goal. If a secession fails and everyone is killed or incarcerated, then the statist will be able to frame the debate and write the history of it.
Indeed, the state has a monopoly on history.
And as Orwell pointed out: “he who controls the past, controls the present” and “he who controls the present, controls the future”.
LS, so by winning over the intellectuals (as we’re doing), we would be able to frame the debate as we wanted. Spontanious order would arise, just as with the internet and open-source software. You suggest forming a small society similar to Waco trying to peacefully secede. But I think this fails to truely spread the message, as it would still be a select society of intellectuals. While it would surely grow in both size and power as it succeeded where government fails, I doubt any government would allow ‘their’ people to leave and join it. As you pointed out in another thread today, you’re a slave to Canada because if you renounce your citizenship you cannot travel or even act. I simply fail to see how this society could expand without violence, and I dont see how violence could be used on that level without damaging much of what we stand for.
You’re correct in as much as, we do need to infiltrate the class of intellectuals in order to succeed. Perhaps it has a function, I doubt it greatly, but Youtube doesn’t have much of a part in this “revolution”. The fact is we need credibility, which we’re not going to get by posting videos on Youtube, which is why the RP movement was so great. He managed to get the ultimate platform and still give out a fairly constitant form of libertarianism. Some say he was too much of a constitutionalist, I say he was merely using the rhetoric to attack the state from another angle.
And as you say there are more and more libertarian thinkers now on universities, people will no doubt begin to pay attention to the Austrian school with this new crisis. As much as this is true, the Austrian School needs to distance itself from the rest, it will only bring down the AS to be associated with the likes of Molyneux, even other good thinkers who are not Austrians (Friedman Jr) don’t belong in this movement.
All this said, people simply aren’t going to denounce the state, they need an alternative. Hence secession, either political or in the way Stranger suggests it.
Spontaneous order will arise regardless. The state is incapable of managing everything, let alone little things. But if they frame the debate, they will take credit for spontaneous order and free market progress as they already have for hundreds of years.
The first thing a lot of unwitting statists say when confronted with anarcho-capitalism is “who would build the roads?”. This is because people have never been taught that roads could exist, and did exist prior to states. The state in many people’s minds provided the first justice. the first legal framework. For the love of it all, the state actually tries to tell people it has created equality, when in reality, slavery, racism and sexism were all part of the state institution, and even now, reverse racism and affirmative action are forms of racism/sexism in and of themselves!
I don’t think Waco was more than 100 people. I’m talking about a couple thousand. Which I suppose is small, but it is not small.
Uhm, no. Because it would be about a few things. 1. Proof that people have the will to secede. 2. That the state opposes it, and yet there is nothing morally wrong with being free, and in fact the laws make it illegal to be free. 3. Providing the first step on the moon of liberty. We might not be able to stay indefinitely and live there, but we could make our point, learn lessons, attract attention etc.
Actually, if I could renounce my citizenship, I could travel. I would have stateless documentation. It actually exists. The blog nostate.com is dedicated to a renuncicant’s journey. The issue is, Canada will not allow me to renounce. They will not recognize my claim to change my citizenship to “none”. I could immigrate to another country, achieve citizenship there, and then renounce. Which is still on the table for me. Obviously it could take many years to do.
I’m really not interested in going down an imaginary tangent ad infinitum.
You’re concerned how things will be done? Simple.
With your participation and encouragement.
There is no “plan”, there is no “single method”. Anarchy is about decentralization. Find what seems worthwhile to you, and see if others are already doing it, or would like to help you. Then go do it. I believe in the education route because I cannot see an anarchist society in a world of ignorance. One way or another, people will have to wake up first.
Thanks, this is exaclty what I was looking for. I was unaware if there was any uniform thought of how this could be accomplished. I suppose that forming a free state and showing the people how quickly the govt turns to guns would demonstrate our ideas very well. Think the courtroom scene from Atlas Shrugged. Force the government to call a spade a spade, and it will hopefully open many eyes to the nature of government. I feel much smarter now. [:)]
The way I see it, the only problem for the average joe would be learning to buy protection insurance. All the sheeple need to recognize is that free market = cheaper. Moreover, there would be profits to be had in helping people transition, so I imagine there would be a flourishing of services for just that purpose.
To win this debate, that is, the debate between libertarians/austrians and the rest of society, the meaning of two words must be recaptured. First, the meaning of the word “anarchy” must be recaptured. If Jay Leno, during one of his jay-walking skits, asked people the meaning of anarchy, most probably would have no answer. The few who might venture an answer would likely say something along the lines of no government, chaos, no laws, lack of order, etc. The idea of “spontaneus order” and localized government is foreign to their thoughts. They cannot conceive of a society without order enforce by the state. When libertarians win this debate, they may begin to attract some of the so-called “law and order” crowd.
By reading the comments in the blogs and forums of this site and by beginning to read the books and articles on this site, I have come to appreciate the diference between “the state” and “the government”. The “state” is what I oppose. It is centralized power that uses force to benefit one favored group at the expense of a disfavored group; it is force that is used to make people do what they do not want to do voluntarily, e.g., fight wars, pay taxes, etc. The “government” is what arises naturallyy or spontaneously when more than one person comes together to form a society. The sole purpose of this government is to protect the rights of individuals; its governing principle is that violence may only be used to repel violence; its underpinnings are that so long as a person’s voluntary actions do not threaten to injure or injure another’s person or property that action may proceed without interference. (I consider myself still new to the study of libertarianism and austrianism, but this is what I understand so far. There are others no doubt who could better articulate what “government” arising from “spontaneous order” means.)
When I talk with others about being libertarian, I tell them I am anti-state, but pro-government. Most of people do not even notice this careful usage of words. When others in the conversation do notice, or when they claim I am an anarchist, opposed to government and law and order, I have set the stage to discuss the difference between being anti-state and pro-government. This velvet glove approach suits my personality better than a club approach; it also lets me have discussions I might not have once I have disarmed my opponent from the notion that I am anti-government, or anti-order.
Second, the meaning of the word “liberal” must be recaptured Liberalism once meant the protection of individual rights through the absence of state coercion. Now it has come to mean the protection or advancement of one group (identified as “disadvantaged”) at the expense of another. So, today’s liberal supports the welfare system, affirmative action, foreign aid, etc. Government power is used to extract something from the “advantaged” group so that it can be given to the disadvantaged group. In this manner, liberalism of today claims to protect individuals rights by “leveling the playing field.”
Because most of today’s conservatives have lost their bearings, some of this same definition of “liberal” and actions certainly applies to today’s "conservatives’ as well. Conservatives were once the small-government, anti-foreign interventionist, and anti-war. Recapturing the meaning of conservative does not seem necessary to win the debate. (If I am wrong, which is quite possible, I would welcome an explanation for why recapturing the meaning of “conservative” is necessary to win the libertarian debate.)
The word “liberalism” needs to be restored to its honored position of small, localzed government that protects all individual rights. Part of this is restoring the belief that private, voluntary action is better able to protect “disadvantaged” groups. The rich, for example, out of the goodness of their hearts will help the poor and needy, better than state coercion will.
Anarchy, properly understood, is not a theoretical exercise, but a practical solution to what vexes society today. LIberalism restored to its honored station is the guiding light for society. Together, these two words, would restore localized government that is truly of the people, by the people and for the people.
I think there are prerequisites to a sustainable anarchic society. Pretending he could, if George Bush got on TV right now and announced that he was dissolving the state, it wouldn’t take long for another government to take control. Most people want government, so we all get it.
I’ve given it a ton of thought and still don’t know what the best strategy is. There’s the long-term route where we basically keep spreading the message and hopefully win the hearts and minds of the general population sometime in the future. The advantage of this strategy is it comes with very little personal cost and risk. You can basically keep living your life as you do now. Of course, the downside is you’re still under the shadow of the state and all of its evils in the meantime. And who knows if that change will ever happen in our lifetime.
If we’re talking fast and direct solutions, we can either run away or stay and fight. The “run away” would be a frontier movement where we’d migrate to some part of the world where we could start our own “country” (ex: http://seasteading.org/learn-more/intro). There’s obviously a huge cost in doing this. You escape the state (maybe) but now you have to rebuild society from scratch and likely lose most of your business and personal relationships. Getting a meaningful number of people on board is really difficult. Still, I think it’s a viable strategy.
The “stay and fight” would involve a large number of people renouncing their citizenship but not moving, not paying their taxes, and not obeying victimless crime laws, but starting to build the framework of a voluntary society including establishing protection agencies to defend against aggression from the government. This has the same advantage as the frontier movement in that you don’t need to win over the general population, you just need “enough” people (what that number is, who knows). The advantage of the secession strategy over the frontier strategy, is you wouldn’t have to give up any relationships or conveniences of modern society, that is, until it got bloody. It’s very risky, but the advantage of this secession movement over something like the Civil War is we’d be decentralized and we’ve already seen in foreign affairs how difficult a time the government has with such a thing. The big question mark is the reaction of the general population. Would they be persuaded to actively turn against us? Would they simply be onlookers? Would some end up joining us? We’d definitely run the risk of undermining our message if we’re perceived as the initiators of violence, but maybe there’s a way of publicizing it to try to avoid this. This has the same practical problem as the frontier movement, we probably don’t have the numbers.
Other strategies…
Something like the Free State Project (http://www.freestateproject.org/) could end up being a hybrid of the above strategies.
I really like the spirit of agorism, but I have some doubts about it’s viability. First, I think it’s very difficult to build a black/gray market “off the books” to the point where it’s mainstream, and still be able to avoid state repercussions. Second, it seems like a lot of initial risk for activities that don’t really attack the power base of the state. If you succeed and take a bit of revenue from the state, it still has the power to get it somewhere else.
Just some thoughts and ideas.
That’s a bit of false dilemma. An intelligent population would make the state much less dangerous, and if people were sheep it would make anarchy even more desperately needed!
The question is not so much, how do we get to anarchy? but more, how do we survive the state?
How about buying a private island and paying extra for full alloidial title. If just 5-10 rich guys pitched in, their would be enough money for investment too. I’m thinking it could specialize in doing cheaply what government makes expenisve, maybe a hospital/resort/(what else?).
It seems that this would be best in terms of both practicallity and in getting the word out there, even if a lot of sophisticated ideas like competing PDA’s aren’t “proved” through this method.