Plauche: "Lavoie is quite right that political culture is an issue that libertarian market anarchists sorely need to address, particularly with regard to the two most sacred and intertwined duties of the state: the provision of justice and security:
(Plauche then quotes Lavoie): ‘What gives legitimacy to a legal system is neither the force of threat by the police, nor the force of pure logic, but the force of public opinion, of the distributed political discourse about rights and responsibilities.’"
Stranger brought this up in another thread on how the State is misconceived as the government. The State is the military, police, courts, teachers, etc… I think this has to do with “civil society” and anarchists still want these. Yet in an anarchist society they are private and part of the free market. Businesses like all the rest. I think natural law would be practiced to encourage the unbiased quality of liberty. But what these quotes above are stating even more is that society will still have a political culture. All that means is people will directly take the actions to keep the harmony and justice intact. People will have civil discourse down at the club, in the bar, with their family, or chatting in the cafe. It is this exchange of ideas that are keeping the civility flowing and the society reasoning and in touch with each other in direct discourse. It’s no longer a government being paternal and looking after everything. It will be people respectfully taking direct action and no longer giving up our responsibilities to a nanny government nagging, but rather a civil society with a free market. Liberty taking place with friendships and respect being an honorable expression. Of course this is a tall order and a virtuous claim but desiring liberty would expect nothing less!
I don’t think we need a standing army. We could have defense agencies. Also a population that is well armed for self-defense reasons outside of defense agency is a rational step too I think.
Stranger defined “State” in that quote of his you provided. I am thinking that instead of saying “State” it would be better to say civil society. I mentioned this later and gave reasons why in that same thread here.
Well, I objected to Stranger’s and others’ redefinitions and now you seem to be also redefining civil society - though I admit that might be easier since civil society is not so well defined.
At any rate, if you put together, say, the current ‘police force’ and the state’s education system you get a powerful and totalitarian organization which has nothing to do with civil society. Rather the police and the schools are military institutions concerned with uniformity and hierarchy, not civil institutions. If you add to that mix the military proper then you get a nice militaristic state.
The idea that ‘the state’ is a socially beneficial institution that has somehow been hijacked by the government is highly misleading IMO.
Do you want a court system? Do you want defense agencies? Do you want police? Do you want teachers?
I am making a completely different claim about these than how the current State handles them. If these are the State now, then I am trying to use a different term to explain what they are in anarchy. Do you have a better term? Of course they would be free market entities, but I think people will still need to take direct political action in their life. If we don’t have reasonable discourse with each other about how the course of events will occur in our society, then we are simply not talking to each other. Where political discourse occurs I mentioned in the OP (of course I gave only a few examples).
1 - Do you agree that these agencies ought to be in the free market?
2 - Do you think people will be politically taking direct action that at one point in time they gave up and let the government do for them?
No I don’t but also I’m not sure what these institutions would be in a, well, stateless society. The police and a good part of the current education system are fully coercive institutions. They would have no place in a free society. Same thing for the military establishment.
Also, notice how courts, police and the military which allegedly ‘protect’ rights have been put in the same bag - the state - as education. Why ? What has education got to do with the military/cops whose ‘job’ is to use violence ?
Another thing. It’s common for libertarians/anarchists to call people who want coercive institutions, ‘statists’. But now, since Stranger and co. have redefined the word ‘state’, calling somebody a statist doesn’t make sense because the state is apparently a legitimate part of a voluntary society.
A stateless society can provide education, courts, defense (police/‘armies’) just fine. There is a longer paper by Kinsella on what it looks like he is talking about here, but I can’t find it right now: Legislation and Law in a Free Society
“We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force…. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.[4]”
Well I personally still keep the State and government together in the same bag. And Stranger did explain that a “statist” is anti-liberty, because a statist is a person that wants to expand the current monopolistic State.
I’m more focused on the courts, defense agencies, and teachers, etc… Stranger lumped them together cause they are all agencies and professions now that only operate via tax. Now currently there are private security firms and private schools, but there are tax equivalents of these too.
By taking political direct action in a civil society, what I mean is people will discuss with each other how, for example, such and such private school is started to teach marxism and is talking down on justice. So the community politically takes direct action and if they don’t want their children to learn this stuff each person takes out their child from the school and transfers their child somewhere else. If another school is far away, then maybe some parents get together and organize a secondary location to have their children taught and they find teachers. Maybe in time organize a way to get a new school built. That would be direct political action full of talking, planning, meetings, and finding a solution amongst themselves without depending on a nanny government. That’s actually something that could be done now. It’s working within the structure of the free market without coercing the marxist school and simply not giving them business anymore. Political direct action is also civil disobedience (always or maybe not always, but it is sometimes as far as I currently understand).
I see. Well, a business (a school in this case) which offered something (marxism) that customers don’t want would probably go…out of business. Or maybe only have a few customers. I’m not sure I’d call those outcomes political, though I realize that they are related to political outlooks.
Hm. But that sort of planning is exactly what the market is about - it’s not politics or ‘voluntary’ government what should control education. Also, you seem to be assuming a small isolated town which doesn’t even have a teacher…?
Yeah, well, except that public education is tax funded. You’re not allowed to opt-out. To engage in civil disobedience you’d need to stop paying taxes and complying with regulations…
Political from Aristotle to today comes in a number of forms depending upon what the person wants done and “who” that person wants to do it. Politics is talking in the barber shop or beauty salon. It’s really not much more than that.
About the school planning: The market is taking care of it, but people are sitting down figure out what to do. It’s not magically built. Their is a process with different people. It needs no permanent politicans, which is the point. Whoever wants to share in the school project gets together and chats and figure out where to go from there. Politics is simple. Government defining of what politics is only a monopoly on the concept. As I said above, politics is chatting in a cafe about how a society (two or more people) want to go about a project. In a civil society, politics and economics are more immanent. The action is direct between the actual people partaking in the process, not by some outside that today are called governmental officials (they are indirectly making actions).
True about the tax bit, complying with regulations, etc… It isn’t a free market yet as we know.[:)]
I was thinking how this forum is a civil society. No initiating of physical coercion (IPC) is happening. People are being civil with each other. This forum also is law principled. So it takes up the society (forum) conduct to a lawful notch. In other words, people are not to come here and advocate murder and stealing. It is not tolerated. So what is civil is clearly defined in this society (forum). The groundwork of what a civil society is being laid here. Many different people from diverse careers and backgrounds are in this forum given the opportunity of liberty to discuss in a civil manner what we would desire. With all the jobs people do the civil society is being given a foundation here and all that is missing for the most part is to now join our economic exchanges in a way that is a non-coerced free market aka rid the government/state. So we are speaking civil about what we would like. Disagreements happen but rational people are hashing them out and coming to conclusions here in the forum. That’s a civil society.
Maybe I am confused, but I linked to that thread and Juan quoted him. Juan was actually arguing against Stranger in the other thread and I, along with others too until I figured out what Stranger was trying to say. And he does believe the state has been hijacked and is actually good Giles.
Now if Stranger makes his presence known in this thread it could be cleared up quickly. I really don’t like to get into trying to figure out other people too much.
No he does not, to my knowledge what Stranger believes is that the modern state is far more pernicious than its predecessor, traditionalist monarchies. In fact, it’s probably more accurate to say that Stranger neither believes the state can be hijacked nor that it is good or bad.
Well that only makes it all the more confusing in the context of previous discussions and the observed arguments that have been going on… to say the least.
Stranger said the State and government are different. He has said the state need not be destroyed but rearranged and obeyed by us and not the government. I am saying, for me, it’s easier to understand that process as the free market. For me now, the State and government are the same. A statist is not for liberty. (for clarification: I definitely am not saying Stranger is a statist.)
I am simply giving my opinion on this seeming hiccup.
Well, I’d agree but partially. There are lots of things that get done ‘magically’, meaning, not all people sit down and plan them. Some people plan A, some plan B, some plan C and then you buy what you think is best. You don’t need to get involved in all enterprises - you don’t need to get involved in civil society (as you seem to be defining it)…
What you say sounds more plausible when dealing with small towns…or the kind of city Greeks like Aristotle lived in. But I don’t think it can be applied easily to ‘big’ industrial societies.