What rubbish. The Somali clan system is very complex and its complexities are not just idiosyncrasies. Clan membership is not determined by blood; a person can switch from one clan to another if the new clan will have him (i.e. reputation matters!). The clan itself does not comprise a jurisdiction (a contiguous land area with a well-defined border) but its land-holdings cannot be transferred outside of itself, that is, clan members may only make land sales to other members of the same clan.
The idea of “tweaking a few key variables” is arrogant in the extreme. The British and the Italians have each tried tweaking Somalia’s variables. Then the Siad Barre dictatorship tried tweaking Somalia’s variables. The US tried it. Now the “African Union” (aka the UN aka the CIA) is trying to tweak Somalia’s variables with foreign mercenary troops and Predator drones. Long live liberty!
Just imagine every government employee going on strike without pay, you have no cops, courts, fire department, schools, and any other tax funded services.
Erm…I don’t really see that as the case. Taxation would certainly be abolished by pressing the button, as well as the coercive activity of the State to send childrent to indoctrination camps, but I see no reason why teachers would not find a way to…get students voluntarily? Are you saying that, in the absence of the State, the agents would all just starve and die, instead of many turning to market activities?
That hypothetical would only cleanse the State of crimes, different than getting rid of the apparatus itself.
I also disagree with this idea. The button would get rid of the State itself. The teachers and public education buildings ≠ the State. They’d still exist, without the institution of Coercion. So they’d be left to sink or swim in The Market.
Somalia is better off than it was before the government collapsed.
As for Mexico… It’s all due to the drug war. The drugs are grown by American soldiers in Afghanistan, the Mexican cartels are provided with weapons by the ATF, and the whole reason for the violence is because the drugs are illegal.
I suppose the gang violence associated with alcohol prohibition wasn’t caused by it either? Lol.
Erm…I don’t really see that as the case. Taxation would certainly be abolished by pressing the button, as well as the coercive activity of the State to send childrent to indoctrination camps, but I see no reason why teachers would not find a way to…get students voluntarily? Are you saying that, in the absence of the State, the agents would all just starve and die, instead of many turning to market activities?
You expect government employees to turn to free-market means in an instant? The button gets rid of the apparatus, it says nothing about changing the minds and views of stubborn Statists. I never said they’d starve and die, but they’d put up a fight to rebuild the apparatus quickly as possible to maintain their income feed.
I also disagree with this idea. The button would get rid of the State itself. The teachers and public education buildings ≠ the State. They’d still exist, without the institution of Coercion. So they’d be left to sink or swim in The Market.
Again, they would be quick to maintain the status quo. If you are differentiating between what the State has and does not, then what does the State own if government buildings and tax paid employees are not part of the State? Either all tax funded employees, projects, and property are part of the State, or you are going to pick and choose to your liking. You can’t have it both ways, of which the teachers and school buildings are an extension of the State.
Fine, fine, good points. In defense of my statement, the “key variables” I suggest tweaking are radical departures from the other attempts you’ve grouped me in with.
I suggest a government could be built in accordance with the existing Somali system. Those other efforts were trying to impose from without.
I don’t think you mean that no government could be instituted at all there.
Well, of course ey did. They had a nonsense post and got nonsense responses.
The question that was probably underlying the op (at least, what it got me thinking about) was the fact that its obviously not very profitable to go by AnCap principals. If it were the most profitable thing for people to do, then hell, we’d be living it.
So maybe it’s the most reasonable thing to do. Well, then we’re confronted with the problem that people aren’t very reasonable, or at least they are reasonable as well as other things.
“Well, of course ey did. They had a nonsense post and got nonsense responses.”
Some of the responses weren’t great but for the most part they were alright. I agree about the OP, however.
“The question that was probably underlying the op (at least, what it got me thinking about) was the fact that its obviously notvery profitable to go by AnCap principals. If it were the most profitable thing for people to do, then hell, we’d be living it.”
The fallacy in this reasoning is that, simply because something is not profitable now, or because people aren’t ‘reasonable’ in a specific way now, means that they won’t be for the rest of time. By this reasoning the fight against slavery should have been abandoned long ago.
what this got to do about profit??? Well, for psychopaths (running the governments and etc), who only live in short term, statism is much more profitable, that’s one thing for sure. But for all the normal people? Not so much. Actually, even if they believe, that statism brings more profit, they are clueless about alternatives and how much they would earn in free market economy.
And these normal people are the majority. If you change their thinking, the minority of psychopaths would be ostracized quickly.
All I am saying, and both the posters above me have much more nuanced views and I recognize that, is that if your main argument is going to be that your philosophy is based on simple truths and axioms about how the world works, then they better actually describe how the world works.
I realize this is a Mises thing that Rothbardians mix in, which is why AnCaps are hard to deal with. What the OP, really ridiculous as it was, got me thinking about is that even if an example of AnCap showed up, it would just become a No True Scotsman if it didn’t look how AnCaps wanted it to, especially the ones that think human action is reasonable and determinable.
Pony, IMO, these couple of posts of yours have been the most reasonable and thoughtful since you’ve joined this forum. Just didn’t want to let this go unnoticed.
“even if an example of AnCap showed up, it would just become a No True Scotsman if it didn’t look how AnCaps wanted it to, especially the ones that think human action is reasonable and determinable.”
I think that in a way this has already been disproven by the examples of areas which have cited as anarchistic by anarcho-capitalists.
Medevil Iceland
When you think of paradise do you think of medevil Iceland? No, it sucked there. It was also dissolved voluntarily by the an-cap agencies themselves
Medevil Ireland
When you think of paradise do you think of medevil Ireland? No, it sucked there and statist (although vaguely libertarian) Arabia was probably a better place for people to live, and anarcho-capitalists accept this. It was also dissolved in the most brutal way that one can imagine.
The Old American West
When you think of paradise, do you think of the ‘wild west’? No, there were many better places to live at the time and it dissolved itself voluntarily. Anarcho-capitalists accept this.
Aspects of Somolia about a decade ago
This isn’t a good example just because anyone with half a brain can see exactly what terrible conditions it developed under. It’s like democracy appearing in the middle of tzarist Russia and Imperial Germany without an ideology to back it up. Still, same general principle
I do see the potential for what you’re talking about though. Indeed it could be similar to the Marxists instane criteria for a true communist revolution.
Ridiculous argument since ancap society is not possible.
Anarchism is unstable in its natural state. However, pseudo-anarchist enclaves can exist within the laboratory or host of other systems.
Anarchism quickly devolves into absolutism as a result of specialization of labor and economies of scale in the coercion industry.
The most effective method to deter absolutism was developed in 1787 by the American founding fathers – Constitutional Federal Republicanism that intentionally balances, decentralizes, limits and makes transparent the elements of armed force.
In contrast, anarchist society has no institutionalized mechanisms to balance, limit, decentralize or make transparent the elements of armed force in society. Essentially, aspiring statists are free to run amok and make plans for the takeover of society by coercive means.
Anyway, if Somalia is considered anarchist. The absurd notion that Somalia is a sterling example of a viable and prosperous society even in East Africa is not supported by a quick search of the phrase “famine in somalia” — it generates far more hits than any of the other nations in the Horn of Africa.
Presumably that is because people are currently starving in this supposed anarchist ‘paradise’.
Just when methoughts stupid thread was dead, stupid thread comes back. At least the quality of anarchist opposition has been raised… But not as much as could be hoped.
I contest all of those examples I’m familiar with (can’t say I know much about Iceland or Somalia frankly), especially the American west. When I get the line that Native Americans were actually Capitalist (there’s my first thread here, for one. a video someone posted with someone talking about property schemes amongst different tribes, etc.), but then the cowboys hunting them down were also acting on NAP and self-ownership, the contradiction is too much to handle.
Now, were there settlers that lived peacefully with neighboring tribes? I’m quite positive there were. Are there probably some examples of people living lives free of what AnCaps consider aggression? It would be silly of me to say no. But do a few examples make up the history of the American West? Hell no.
I’m interested in what you think its history is, because there’s a whole hell of a lot of conflicting property claims going on in that story.
“I do see the potential for what you’re talking about though. Indeed it could be similar to the Marxists instane criteria for a true communist revolution.”
Now that I can agree with. No true communism has been the party line. That’s why I just like to say, “okay! The USSR was communist and it sucked! Where do we go from here?”
Between the settlers the fact is that there was a well instituted system of anarchistic law. You help to rienforce my eyes (in my view) in that you are exactly right that it wasn’t a pure example of an anarcho-capitalist society and yet an-caps point to it as an example of such a society. Your point is well taken, however.
As for the view about communism (I’m having trouble quoting) I disagree in a sense. It’s inaccurate to refer to the USSR as a communist country in the Marxian vein in the same way that it’s technically proper but inaccurate to refer to both the United States during the Industrial revolution and Nazi Germany as ‘capitalist’ societies. You could argue that they were, but the fact is that they can’t be expected to function the way that the various theorists would expect them to. The position that I take is that, for instance, the Russian Revolution and the lack of revolution where Marxian theories say that they must occur, displays the difficulty in instituting ‘the right kind of communism’ and the horrors that can happen when the ‘wrong kind of communism’ sets in which happens very easily.
My take is that the “right kind” and “wrong kind” of anything don’t really matter, and what happens matters. This is probably a difference in our general methodologies as well. I’m more of a fan of observation or empiricism, whereas (I’m going to guess) you’re more into theoretical or axiomatic deduction.
That’s all fine and dandy, but it doesn’t do much for describing what’s happening–or what should happen-- right now, right here in the City of Townsville.
Well, ancap versus your-cap (whatever it is, BP), is merely a difference in culture of the society practicing it.
For example, say that the West was in a state of anarchy. Then we would describe it as AnCap if private property nearly always respected, and not AnCap if it weren’t. Hence, the conditions and culture in which the anarchy exists defines the type of anarchy.
Then the question becomes “can an anarchic society become AnCap?”
