… Yes I’d like to here how a society (or is that term to collectivistic) would defend itself against an invading army of a medium sized state. They of course won’t take the thing (the society, if the term is allwoed) as a whole at once. They just would take bordering real estate one by one, until they got all they want. Now if that property had a contract with a private law insurance company how would the really react? Cancel the contract (as they don’t feel bound by honour and duty) or take on the state with it’s private army (who subsequently would hunt them down as part as their war against terrorism.)
A good question is also how the rest of that market-anarchistic society would react, since coming to the invaded guys aid (for something else then money) would be kind of collectivistic (nationalism, patriotism, tribalism, racism or whatever).
Because that’s what they wanted. Stop being a progressive. On one hand you idealise the North Albanian communities of extended families as the original pristine anarchists. And on the other hand you treat them as defects in need of re-education. If they are content in their independent but modest lives then that is how they want to be. It does not mean anything beyond that. It does not mean that ‘the state has so far outdone’ anarchy. There is no ‘outdoing’. We are not for anarchy because it means prosperity or progress or whatever. We are for anarchy because we want people to be free. What they do with that freedom is their own thing. Stop bringing into the picture value judgements where skyscrapers are the yardstick to judge achievement by and treating it as some sort of a defect if there are people who want to use their freedom not to run around in a rat race chasing money but to live on their hilltops and shower without using shampoo.
Plus your thesis that for the division of labour to arise formation of a state was necessary first is just obviously false. Division of labour had to occur in the state of anarchy because division of labour is necessary for the state to appear in the first place. A primitive society where everyone is of the same profession is simply too poor to support parasites like kings. Only after you have a division of labour it even becomes possible to make a living as a full time robber.
This is exactly why your Northern Albanian clansmen have stayed anarchic until this day. They are too poor to make it worthwhile for anyone to economically exploit them.
I fully agree with you, but I’m afraid you misunderstood me. What I meant is:
a) due to the structure of individual preferences in tribal societies, anarchic societies have been poor from a materialistic point of view.
b) most people who just can’t get logical thought and are unwilling to go past “show me an example” argument will take these anarchistic societies as failures, not understanding that they are extremellysuccessful taking preferences into consideration, but simply equating statelessness with material poverty. We all know the looks we get when we cite as examples of anarchy and medieval .
c) in almost every case when there are very wide differences among individual “breaking points” (conceding the point ofmy analysis) anarchy is unstable: only the emergence of the state will enable those with higher breaking points to exploit the dormant productivity of individuals with low breaking points. Every other divergence between preferences can be addressed with trade: differences in preference “ceilings” cannot, by their very nature, be addressed with trade, hence, they will be addressed with war and exploitation. I don’t see any way around that.
d) Thus, at any given time here are either no major differences in individual breaking points (what I believe to be the case in the West) and the state is either dying or inexistent, or else such differences exist and the State is alive and kicking. So, we know that every time a state exists it will outdo anarchy, no mater how immoral that might be from out point of view. It will just happen.
This is a very interesting insight. I shall ponder that seriously.
What comes to mind right now is that considering the first kings to be parasites would not appear a very realistic approximation: Hoppe make sit clear that kings could only have emerged as gifted individuals, enjoying wide respect in the community. A parasite would have never been able to impose his rule. So it is indeed true that a society without division of labor could not support parasites, but it would also appear true that originally the State was not parasitic as it is now to us. Nevertheless you point deserves a much fuller answer.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation. The most numerous herds of zebras are to be found in areas where there are the most lions. But this does not mean lions are good for zebras. It just means lions go where the zebras are.
It so happens that prosperity greatly improves the chances for a state to arise. The more accumulated wealth around you the nearer you are to a realization that you could live exclusively by the means of marauding. This is why you had the state arise first in at the time the most advanced and prosperous region of the world - Mesopotamia. The conditions for it to appear were much better for it there.
So when you have the state gobble up all the best real-estate in the world you should not act surprised when regions under a state outperform anarchic regions. You don’t seriously expect Indians in the Amazonian jungle to emerge more advanced than the folks from the fertile crescent even if the latter have to drag around a ball on a chain.
But this (correct) line of though establishes only that states can only emerge in somewhat prosperous communities. It does not mean that states must emerge in such communities. All the contrary, by following Misesian tenets it would appear that the state is the stupidest pastime that a prosperous community can invest in: following Misesian tenets societies that adopted states should have been erased form the face of the earth due to capital consumption, and hence famine, war and social unrest.
So, following a single Misesian line of thought, we would except 1) that very few societies adopt the state (by accident) and that 2) those perish due to the internal structure of statist societies or at the very leas 3) are outperformed by anarchistic societies. There should be no state at all nowadays, or at most only backward African societies would sport one.
Yet history show very clearly that every society that had a meaningful amount of division of labor had a state. Only tribes resisted statehood. I certainly agree that correlation is far from being causation, but still doing away with 8000 year of undisputed human history would not sit well for us: it only detracts point to our analysis. Seriously, am I the only one who finds major incongruences between praxeology and human history?
This thread is only my modest attempt to establish a causal, not correlational, connection between rich societies and states. Of course a decent attempt would require me reading every major anthropological book around, and tehn generalizing form those. In practice I’ve only read “our” articles about Ireland and Iceland, Somalia and my dear, dear Albanian tribes. It is certainly a big jump to push a general theory form four cases, but I feel that this theory cannot be entirely done away with.
“8000 year of undisputed human history” meaning your “undisputed” opinion. From my observation of history, the “causation” of the state is correlated with the arrival of the soldier. Eventually reinforced by the mercenary.
We can play with words as much as we like, yet the fact remains: every time that a society has been able to progress beyond tribalism, a state was there. And every time an anarchic society met a statist one, the anarchic society was swept away. It is unwise for us to close our eyes toward this track record, simply saying that “causation is not correlation” or “states had big armies” (insurgency anyone?). We must explain this track record, else we stand little chance of convincing the majority of people to our point of view.
So if anyone has a single counter-example of a non-tribal anarchist society (beside the political/business elite, I know them), or a stable., developed anarchist society please do tell.
Nonsense. What we know is that a region which falls prey to a state will develop more slowly than if it had not fallen prey to it and will periodically but needlessly fall into crisis situations. The inescapable consequence of being erased from the face of the Earth is not something we know it is merely a vivid fantasy of yours. (Albeit I can observe that today there are certainly no Sumerian, Babylonian or Akkadian societies around and that the rest of us live in a world under permanent danger of nuclear annihilation.)
Nonsense. Disparate regions can not be compared in this way. State is only one of many factors deciding at what pace the society is going to advance. Nobody has ever claimed it is the factor which can outweigh other factors combined or individually. We only claim it is a factor which has a serious detrimental effect proportionate to the size of this state.
We don’t need to offer Iceland as a an example of a region which was world leader in any field of achievement. It is enough that we can offer it as example of a region which did enormously well considering it was an isolated, inhospitable and sparsely populated island settled by people from what was at the time a relatively unsophisticated culture.
That is like asking to provide you with an example of a society on which the decisive influence was exerted by philosophical Anarchists. Anarchism has existed as a rounded ideology for only some 40 years. You will forgive us if in this short time we have not jet been able to convince any societies of the merit of our argument.
Very well, allow me to rephrase than: what one earth could non-tribal societies around the world, from Mesoamerican civilization, to fluvial empires, monarchies, republics, land states, sea city-states, deeply religious societies, less religious societies, caucasian, negroid, mongoloid civilizations, every conceivable mixing of population over 8000 years, what do all these societies have in common? What is that factor, besides the state, that somehow binds them all, allowing them to outdo their anarchistic counterparts? What was this “plus factor: tat you postulate? If such an other factor, or complex of factors, can be easily found, even presupposed, than I will seriously weight this theory I put forward here against he alternative.
Do not misunderstand me: I’m not advocating the state, neither am I saying that the state bring about development. I’m only saying that, given the initial structure of individual preferences, what we consider material prosperity brought about by that same factor that brings up the state. So, prosperity and the state are both caused by the same factor, but not by one-another.
Which, unlike Ireland, which the English at least took the trouble of fighting for seven centuries, switches to statism all by itself. Someone you introduce to anarchy will be asking this: why, than, Iceland switched, without any invasion, to a State? How would you answer?
Ireland got “owned” by the English. The Gauls got “owned” by the Romans. The Illyrians got “owned” by the Romans. The village communities in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and India (the famous Aryan hordes) got “owned” by local city-states. God only know how many tribes where “owned” by the European colonialists during the last half of the XIX century. Should I go on
?
You are right: it is only now that a logical anarchist movement has emerged, and only now will ancap get a chance.
Yet you could go one step further and ask: why is the movement only 40 years old? Why did only Mises think of praxeology, although the basic facts where easily observable back in greek city-states, and the brain weren’t lacking? Shortly, why we get these ideas only now?
I believe this is simple: only recently did the Misesian assumption that people prefer “more to less” become universally valid in the west, and only nowadays is it becoming true for a majority on earth: only now we can think in terms of praxeology instead of mercantilism and shamanism, and only now we can envision what an anarcho-capitalistic society could work. All I’m doing here is ask: why only now?
Yes the Irish fell to a Norman invasion but you will notice so did England. In fact it took Normans longer to (nominally) conquer Ireland than it had taken them to conquer England. And once “conquered” Ireland had managed to preserve far more freedoms than England did. This despite the fact England was larger and more populous. So if anything it is statist England which “got owned” - by the Normans. Showing just the opposite of what you claim - that anarchic region has a better shot at defending itself than a statist region would.
Other non-vague examples you mention haven’t a connection to anarchism. The Gauls and the Illyrians did not live in anarchic societies. They were organised in what van Creveld calls “tribes with rulers” or “chiefdoms”. When Illyria fell it was ruled by a queen - Teuta. Not exactly an anarchy.
Which bring up the question: “why where the Irish much less numerous than what than amounted to the English, if anarchy is superior?” Both societies had time to evolve in their respective paths: England under statism, Ireland under anarchy. Yet, by the end of the day, Ireland was conquered just as statist England had been, even if it had time to further revolve even when England fell to the temporary chaos of war. Actually, taking in consideration that so many tribes warred over what is now England, with Celts, Welsh, Norses, Normans, Jutes, Angles, Saxons and God only knows what else, while no war at all erupted in Ireland (as far as I know), and still Ireland was unpopulated (compared with England) would seem to clearly point that, unless we can figure out some balancing consideration that helped England evolve do fast, given the circumstances, tribal anarchism is a very stable yet static system (and that is true). Would you disagree?
My family has a naturally recognized head. Does this make my family a statist unit?
Of course tribes had chieftains, and of course “the iron law” of oligarchy applies to anarchic tribes just as it does to any other agglomeration of humans: yet these leaders where naturally acknowledged and could be kicked out at any time. Even Irish tribes had “kings”, which’s authority was entirely voluntary (”natural”). So, we should not confuse the normal stratification of individuals that occurs naturally, with a violently held monopoly: if by ‘anarchy’ one means egalitarianism, there is no such society to be found. Good lord, my soccer team will select a captain to carry out ‘‘negotiations’’ in the field.
Are you insinuating that a strong central state overcomes the weaker state? How about the Mongol Empire? Did this nomadic tribe have a strong state?
Nevertheless as Marko postulated, Liberty is a new concept. The division between bureaucracy vs tyrants was recent in human history.
I’ll go as far as to imply that the first villager(s) (who had wealth to lose) who was influential (or subsidized a leader) acquired the wealth to amass and pay soldiers.
Under this circumstance I disagree with your stance that the state appeared before wealth.
Yes, the Mongol invasion is certainly an instance of a very loosely organized commonwealth, over the “statelessness” of which we can debate for quite some time, which managed to overcome so many states (but many more tribal cultures along the way, I’m afraid). The same goes for turkik tribes, barbarian inversions and many, may other instances. Some explanation is indeed due, but I cannot provide it for the time being.
As for liberty being a new concept, again we must ask ourselves why is that liberty is such a new concept (in the west, in it is way older).
You can’t have a discussion with someone who is comfortable lecturing you on something they don’t know. If you don’t know what tribes with rulers are all you need to do is to ask for Creveld’s .pdf, not assume you already know all there is to know. It doesn’t look like you are arguing in good faith either. While you militantly assert Illyrians are comparable to a soccer team you on the other hand choose to doubt the statelesness of the similarly organised Mongols when the argument is turned around against you. Mongols were indeed not anarchic, but if Illyrians were a soccer team, then Mongols were a bunch of people waiting at a bus stop.