Not as I conceive it. My position is fairly subtle. Although it’s an old post from when I first discovered libertarianism, I think the gist of the argument is laid out fairly well in the link in my sig. I didn’t mentioned anti-authoritarianism as one of the I.D.E.A. factors (the factors determining whether a spontaneous order will develop into a state or not) because I think that sentiment comes and goes through the ages, but the other factors are steadily increasing and have virtually exploded in relatively recent history.
Well, you’re obviously not for forcing people to accept your system, but rather for winning them over to a normative viewpoint through argumentation. Yes, normativity isn’t necessarily imposition, and it would be fallacious to assert otherwise. The reason I think Clayton wrote this post, and why I make the arguments that I do, is that there is a kind of undercurrent in the past few decades in libertarianism that seems to underemphasize the fact that in the end there can be no imposition of any concrete order. The argument is fleshed out powerfully by Adam Knott here.
As far as I can tell, the kind of normativity you are advocating is not meant to be taken to task by of any of these kinds of posts.
However, if all that is now cleared up, I would like to nudge that perhaps the most efficient use of resources (whatever those may be for each person involved) might be toward breaking the monopoly on law, as Clayton mentions. I think he’s basically saying, and I agree, that everything else pales in comparison to issue of the monopoly on law. Moreover, once you eliminate the monopoly on law I bet just about everything you want to improve in a thicker libertarian program will come as an automatic bonus. And finally, I suggest that whatever changes wouldn’t come as a bonus (if any) wouldn’t be automatically forthcoming precisely because those aspects are firmly ingrained in human nature or in the culture of present society, so would be very hard to change. That said, the other benefits of lack of statism would surely facilitate you achieving those extra thick-libertarian goals far more easily. All in all, my position is one of fairly thoroughgoing optimism if we even once reach a state of statelessness.
Good point AJ, but even with the technological advances in today’s society, I think people would naturally cluster together for any number of reasons (conducting trade, starting business, common defense, etc.). These initially voluntary groups might monopolize a geographic territory, and “set up shop”; establish a community. Of course, one might still be able to secede, but I find it hard to imagine that the rest of the folks would let him say “I secede, but I’m staying right here”. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t boot his buns out of the walls and into the “wilderness” (as the bible puts it).
At what point does this become a state, rather than a voluntary cooperative village? Would this still be considered an anarchy, or a panarchy?
Interesting point. This makes a lot of sense when viewed from an incrementalist standpoint. Take voting for instance. Voting may ultimately be a dictatorship of the majority imposed upon the minority, but if you are the majority, you can impose your will upon the area of jurisdiction. You can break the monopoly on law, by hijacking the state apparatus to repeal laws from the state, which are of themselves monopolistic. The state monopoly disappears from every facet of society you remove a law from.
But that’s exactly my point: “just seeing what happens” is not enough to maintain anarchy.
No. I can impose a system based on the NAP without leading to minarchy, since a system based on the NAP by definition rules out the possibility of minarchy.
Sage:
Very good point.
Though I consider myself a panarchist, and though I agree with John Zube regarding tolerance and on panarchism as the idea of multiple societies coexisting on a nonterritorial basis, I disagree that panarchism includes any direct attempt to abolish or alter the political forms of others.
This is a point I’ve made, I believe, in all of my short essays on panarchism.
Right now, it is technically possible for libertarians (anarchists, panarchists, whatever…) to form voluntary communities on the Internet. The example I used recently, was one where we could each attach an invoice to the e-mails we send one another, billing one another a penny per hour for “intellectual services.” This would constitute:
A voluntary wage and trade agreement, on a non-territorial basis, coexisting with the wage and trade agreement of the existing state.
This would be, in essence, the emergence of a panarchist society or community, since it would be a coexisting agreement amongst a group of like-minded people, on a nonterritorial basis.
And this kind of community need not entail any actions towards statists or their institutions whatsoever. It also does not entail any attempt to change the political convictions or convictions of conscience of another person or group.
Thus, in my opinion, a weak point in the traditional panarchist position is the very issue you are discussing above. If an attempt is made to abolish someone else’s political association, then an attempt is obviously made, not to “co-exist” with that political form, but rather to eradicate it.
As you point out, and I believe rightly so, territorialism and compulsory membership constitute statism. This is exactly correct.
Thus, in a consistent panarchist philosophy, as I see it, our political striving is directed, not at altering or abolishing the political forms of others (as John Zube might write, no matter how “objectively” wrong or bad they may appear from our point of view). Instead, in a consistent panarchist philosophy, the goal is to construct or erect our own political forms side-by-side or coexisting with existing political forms.
As I mentioned, I’ve been making this point quietly in the short essays I’ve written about panarchism, believing that the point you raise is the weak point in the panarchist program.
But in the current state of technology, it simply is not necessary to alter or abolish other people’s political forms in order for the beginnings of panarchist (libertarian, anarchist, etc…) society to emerge.
Adam
The problem with panarchism is that it runs into the paradox of tolerance. Like relativism, universal tolerance is self-refuting. Constructing political forms that coexist with present political forms is not possible if those political forms are incompatible. For example, anarchism and statism cannot coexist, because whereas anarchism involves everyone choosing their own legal system, statism involves imposing a legal system on everyone. Hence for anarchism to exist, statism must be eradicated, and vice versa.
So I can’t see how panarchism is a coherent position.
Why is it necessary to only choose between absolute anarchism and absolute statism? Either option seems unlikely to happen.
This is an abstract argument referring to further abstract arguments.
But I provided a concrete example.
I didn’t know panarchists advocated universal tolerance, I thought it was mutual tolerance.
Good point Angurse.
Personally, I would even narrow the scope further, though of course each social thinker has their own take.
I don’t see it as “demanding” tolerance from those who don’t want to show any. I see it as “walking the walk” for panarchists. Panarchists, in order to achieve their goals, must be tolerant. Intolerance may be, and in fact is, a part of other political philosophies.
The most persuasive panarchist aguments I know counsel tolerance by panarchists (and libertarians and anarchists who are open to panarchism) as a means to their ends.
Some panarchists may think in terms of demanding universal tolerance. I don’t.
I assume it as a given that there are absolutists and statists who do not want multiple coexisting societies on a nonterritorial basis. Instead, they want the world to be made over in their vision, and for all others to conform to their moral, ethical, and legal ideals.
The panarchist argument as I understand it and advocate it, is that panarchists, to be self-consistent, do not have this luxury.
A demand for universal tolerance is in my opinion inconsistent with panarchist philosophy.
What does likeliness of occurring have do with anything?
Do you have a response to the actual argument I gave?
If panarchism does advocate mutual tolerance, then how is that anything different from libertarianism?
If anything its consistent libertarianism, but there are multiple definitions at play here.
Collectives (vertical hierarchies) seem to spring up in most groups of human beings at every level. They’re called ‘gangs’ in prison, and different names elsewhere, including in all the examples you listed above, and finally, in ‘states’. A horizontal “live and let live” structure seems to be more of an exception than the rule. Or so I have observed.
Z.
Agreed.
Z.
I agree. But I may be too wary of the “This time it’s different!” trap into which many better men have fallen before me. That, and my opinion that the collectivist gene in humans (that has repeatedly over-run and smothered the individualist alternative through history) may take centuries to weaken enough and allow individualism to flourish.
We both agree that the feasibility of anarchy depends on the human agent’s model. You’re just a bit more optimistic as to what that model is now, and how easily it can be nudged in the “right” direction in the near future.
Z.
I would propose a further paradox of tolerance as it relates to panarchism: namely, that its own ground rules force it to be tolerant of literally any form of statism. And, furthermore, there’s the fact that (at least some) of the legal systems that it is tolerant towards are internally intolerant, in that they preclude the possibility of the mutual consent of all of those that live within their domains. So it seems like what one ends up with is tolerance between states which are themselves internally monopolistic.
Panarchism is an incoherant position if it reduces to an attempt to absorb things that are inherently incompatible with anarchism (such as monarchies and representative democracies) into anarchism. The very nature of these political systems are internally non-anarchistic, and panarchism seems to simply insist on having anarchism between states - and yet that’s exactly what we already have in terms of the relations between nation-states in the absence of a global state. At best, panarchism minaturizes/localizes and diversifies this.
Why not apply the critique you just wrote to the concrete example I provided ?
What are its ground rules?
You seem to be saying that anarchy is unstable, that it (seemingly paradoxically) needs a guiding hand. Who do you imagine is the agent(s) that will “maintain” anarchy, and by what kinds of actions?
Yet imposition of a system by definition rules out the NAP, not to mention that everyone defines aggression differently. Again, who will be doing what in order to impose a system based on the NAP? The only way for single person or group to impose a system on everyone is via a state.