@Somalia: The error of appealing to Somalia as an example of “free markets” or “anarchy” is that it is clearly neither. The Somalis themselves couldn’t give a flying flip about Amero-European philosophical ideas such as “free markets” or “anarchy”… Somali culture simply is what it is. Rather than looking at what we can learn from the Somalis and their heroic, unprecedented resistance to a century of colonialism and violent meddling in their affairs, those who denigrate Somalia as a wasteland of free-market and anarchist ideology are simply exhibiting the same racist snobbery that infuses European colonialism. They impose alien cultural concepts onto Somalia, generalizing as if the Somalis were themselves so many cattle rooting for this or that European ideology.
Until you start talking about Somalis as human beings with a rich culture and history of their own that clearly deserves respect, you really aren’t talking about Somalia, you’re just using the name “Somalia” as some kind of boogey-man to push whatever ideology it is you happen to be peddling today.
When it comes to Somalia especially- why ignore the intense US government involvement in that region and its support for the dangerous Somali government which seeks to impose its will on all the people. I’d definitely say that particular kind of state action has a lot to do with making sure theres some type of chaos.
You see? That’s why anarchy will never happen, because there will always be bullies like US who would try to impose their will upon free people in other countries!!! Better have a state! Anarchy debunked.
“And Jay, aah the intellectual ascent. If only people were smarter and more educated, then we would have peace and prosperity in an.cap.”
I never mentioned level of education. I just meant that you need to have a body of people that accept ancap principles even if they don’t name it as such.
“All the examples of modern an cap, and all of them you reject out of elitism, naivity or delusion.”
No they don’t.
“when you see kowloon city, the violent drug gangs dont fit your idea of protection agencies.”
That’s not anarcho-capitalism.
Stupid constitutionalists. Haven’t you seen what happened in Iraq before the United States came in?
“when you see Somalia, the bandit groups don’t suit your world of PDAs.”
Somolia is a mediocre case of anarcho-capitalism that has evolved out of the worst possible situation, all of which are because of governments. Life is better in Somolia than most of the surrounding ‘nations’. That’s more than the Weimar Republic could say.
“when you see mexico, the cartel controlled free-for-all still doesnt work as an-cap for you.”
That’s not anarcho-capitalism. You’re literally either ignorant of anarcho-capitalism itself or you are a liar.
“its not right because it doesnt meet the rothbardian an-cap description? Talk about contradictions! When anarchy is supposed to follow your exact rules, lest it be not worthy. Surely papa Rothbard himself would be more open minded about these developments.”
When democracy is supposed to follow exact rules when it’s meant to embody the will of the majority…
"Its not right because the state outlaws legitimate protection services from competing with bandits? Well guess what, the states prescriptions matter little any more, when the state doesnt even have control over the area. the whole argument doesnt make any sense in this context
"
“Its not right because foreign state outlawed drug demand for drugs feeds money to illegitimate cartel activities/foreign states finance the bandits of nonstate areas. now we’re reaching marxism nuttery - nothing will work for you unless the whole world lives by your ideas - in the case of trotsky the global socialism, for you global ancap.”
So when there is a government waging war against an organization and itself has a monopoly on dispute resolution which means that the only way that anyone can either sell drugs or law is underground. The demand for law is scarce while drugs are not, so no law despute regulation arises, however organizations that then defy property rights and act like STATES, because people understand force in this ideological servitude of statism where they don’t understand cooperation. This is anarcho-capitalism? NO.
“so my proposal to you is simple - embrace anarchy. when you see mexico, somalia, kowloon, admit it as your own. Either that, or stop being hypocritical bastards and claiming to support an-cap when in reality, you dont.”
No, we do, we oppose statism. You, as a supporter of statism, support the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Accept the great wars of the past, accept the genocides of Rwanda and of Nazi Germany. Don’t deny statism when you see it!
You’re an idiot.
You can’t be bothered to actually bother to take on intelligent responses to the foolishness you spit out. There are intelligent arguments against free markets and anarchism, I know, I’ve used them before and I sometimes pull them out against austrian dogmatists who have no real idea what they’re talking about. I have yet to hear you make a single intelligent argument. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0
Also, nice grammatical fail with the title… Champ…
it has the fundamental interest and incentive of keeping peace and welfare of its citizens to ensure prosperity for itself, whereas competing gangs who lack firm control of their area by this virtue dont have this incentive
Doublethink alert! I repeat, we have a doublethinker!
You speak of the state as “it” as if it is a living organism capable of making decisions and acting purposefully. At the same time, you break up the supposed warloard in the free market as separate individuals. Why not put them on equal ground, eh? Why not instead use “the market”? Let’s try that. Then, the market, too has incentives to protect its people so that it can maximize benefit from them.
Or perhaps you don’t like merging the market into one. Then, you can accept the reality that government isn’t an “it” but is a collection of individuals with porposes who are fundamentally not different from your free market warlords. A this point, your argument for government breaks down.
But it’s alright to accept doublespeak. After all, 2+2=5 when you need it to.
So ancaps can’t be so picky about the definition of their own system? That one condition is met - the de facto absence of state power - is all we’re allowed to care about? Not liberal values and conventions? A recent history, even of the past decade, lacking in intervention from foreign powers or of brutal domestic tyranny? (it’s not like “anarchy” in these countries led to the degeneration of a functioning liberal order)
Will you take North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, as well as the Soviet Union, Maoist China, Nazi Germany, etc. etc. as your own? That they don’t fit your idea of a proper state is apparently no excuse.
Suppose the OP is right and there actually is a region with no government, but it is not thriving. There is still a key element missing: time. If the government of the US were to magically disappear this afternoon, no AnCap expects society to be thriving this evening. There would at first be chaos, as with any major sudden change.
It takes time for a society to form, for businesses to start, and for conventions to become established in the new order. No one thinks it happens immediately. The question is how long it takes. Somalia is already better off than its neighbors after just a few years, scarcely enough time for much social-level change to happen. Think what will happen after a generation. And this is to say nothing of the effect of economic education.
If you ask me, the clock is ticking on the statist paradigm.
If the government of the US were to magically disappear this afternoon, no AnCap expects society to be thriving this evening. re would at first be chaos…
I disagree. I think if we pressed Rothbard’s hypothetical button to abolish government immediately (I would), then we would immediately be better off. Maybe not “thriving,” but there would certainly not be chaos…
That depends on what you mean by government. I’m talking about if every agent of the state were to suddenly just quit. People would panic. Criminals would run free in the streets, etc.
RD is neglecting the effect of long-term market suppression due to the government’s monopolization and cartelization of many markets. The government pumps and treats the vast majority of water that people consume… if the government simply ceased existing instantaneously (and stopped writing paychecks to the waterworks employees), a lot of people would die.
This is why it’s a crucial point that being anti-state doesn’t mean that abolishing government per se is the goal. In fact, “abolishing government” is no less a collectivist concept than “abolishing crime” or “abolishing poverty.” Government is one of many ills of society and being opposed to it doesn’t mean support some maniacal project to remove it at any cost. Rather, opposition to government is a matter of principle. I’m opposed to government for the same reason I’m opposed to crime: it’s immoral and destructive. The existence of government is merely a symptom of a deeper problem: the bad values held by the vast majority of the public.
Just go look at any police brutality video on YouTube. The majority of the comments will be of the nature “f— the cops!” but the comments of those who are not anti-police tend to be disturbing in the extreme. Rather than saying something reasonable like “well, we don’t know the whole story but yeah it looks pretty bad” or “I support my local police but if they break the law I do believe they need to be punished like anybody else” you read comments like, “She was assaulting the officer! She deserved to have her ass SHOT she’s lucky she only got tased!” or “God bless our police officers who risk their lives every day to keep us safe from scum like this” and so on. This response is indicative of the same kind of mob morality exhibited by a medieval serf going to watch a public hanging and throwing rotten fruit at the convict who may be completely innocent for all the spectator knows. I do not believe we have actually progressed very far in real terms from the days of racks, whips and red-hot pokers.
I was talking about Rothbard’s button which immediately abolishes all criminal activity of the State. And I think abolishing government is the same as abolishing the State, since they are synonyms.
I didn’t realize you were talking about if all the relatively non-aggressive services were abolished immediately too, sorry. The courts and police (and their employees) would still be there, just ready for a quick confiscation by the private sector.
By way of analogy, let me explain that the State school system would be abolished, but the public school/employee resources would still be there: simply without the coercive link to the populace, where they can force parents to send their children to their indoctrination camps.
That’s how I always read Rothbard’s button, anyway. I’d still press it, though, even if it meant the elimination of all the services/agents in the process.
@RD: The trouble is that there is no non-arbitrary way to separate between the “aggressive” and “non-aggressive” components of the State… the waterworks are paid for out of tax revenues which are collected by threat of the very men with guns who can assault you for no good reason, etc. Any responsible and lasting process of elimination of the immoral functions of the State must necessarily be gradual and evolutionary and driven by real change in the public’s morality. We can’t just “change the system” and then hope that people get used to the new way things work and then change their minds.
This is why revolutions never work. They start out idealistic… “We’re going to bring FREEDOM to the people!” but then the opportunists start jockeying for “leadership” of the budding revolt. If things go to the streets and a revolution is effected and the old government thrown out, it is in large part the result of the organization and executive management of the early-adoptive revolutionary leaders who now become the new rulers of the land. Being the opportunists they are, they do not deliver liberty, just their brand of government oppression and tyranny.
I was talking about Rothbard’s button which immediately abolishes all criminal activity of the State. And I think abolishing government is the same as abolishing the State, since they are synonyms.
I didn’t realize you were talking about if all the relatively non-aggressive services were abolished immediately too, sorry. The courts and police (and their employees) would still be there, just ready for a quick confiscation by the private sector.
There’s a difference in privatization of government monopolies and the complete and sudden stopping of government services. Just imagine every government employee going on strike without pay, you have no cops, courts, fire department, schools, and any other tax funded services. Criminal activity and non criminal activity of the state are rather…borderless. If you accept taxation as a criminal activity, then all services funded by taxes are criminal inherently. You can’t pick out which one’s you’d keep and others you’d get rid of in some time scale.
If there was a button that only got rid of criminal activity of the State that doesn’t get rid of the State, that hypothetical would only cleanse the State of crimes, different than getting rid of the apparatus itself.
Democracy of another kind could work in Somalia still. My state’s right of political separation would allow each clan to create their own jurisdiction and opt out of controlling ones. With a separation of economy and state, there’d be no largesse to vote to one’s self or one’s clan.
Just because we tried to force a western-style democracy on Somalia doesn’t mean you can’t tweak a few key variable in how a state works and create a working system.
Well, it appears to work in the corporate system with shareholders.
Remember, democracy is not a governmet system. It’s a system for making decisions. Democracy can exist regardless of government.
Anyway, what if Somalia adopted a “Constitution”? Not one which creates a stronger government, but one which defines the crime of property violation? I realize I, too, and ignorant of Somali culture, and hence don’t know what’s “best” for them, so there.
Anarchy debunked.