Help answering someone's questions

Miscellaneous General
1

I thought I had finally gotten to a place where I could pretty well explain what I believe, but I find it difficult, especially when explaining to someone I know and really want to… make the perfect answer for.

Anyway, someone asked about my political views being set to “anarchist” on facebook and I’m trying to explain why I believe that would be the best, or rather, the right system.

Friend - “I’ve just noticed your political views as “Anarchist”… is this true or are you really more of a Libertarian?”

Me - “'Tis true. I am not what I’d call a “stereotypical” anarchist, but an anarchist none-the-less. I do share many, or really most, libertarian beliefs. A lot of libertarians are in fact anarchists.. A lot are minarchists. And some are probably something else. I also very much admire the “Juris Naturalist” political standpoint as defined by Richard Maybury. I don’t know that there is a subset of anarchy I fit into extremely well, but probably best into individualist anarchy or free-market anarchy. So, anarchist, yes, but that can mean many, many different things to different people.”

Friend - “I think that’s very interesting, but I must wonder - do you think Anarchy is realistic for a society? How could a society run without structure and laws?”

Me - “There could be, and most probably would be, structure and even law in an anarchical society. There simply wouldn’t be an organization that’s viewed as having the authority to infringe on the rights of the people in the name of justice, peace, or any other name. The “law” would be based on, or would be natural law rather than a government’s law. All of the services that the government provides, or tries to provide, could, and would be probably 100 times better, provided privately, by the market. This includes courts, criminal investigators, security, fire fighters, etc. In fact, all of the things I mentioned, including courts, already ARE provided by the market in some areas, better than the government(that’s why they exist and people choose to use them), and are chosen over the governments services.”

Friend - “Do you not think such a society would possibly lead to even more corruption? Without checks and balances and authority to carry them out, I cannot see such a society being better… It seems to me the courts, criminal investigators, et al. would be seeking their own interests or the interests of their employers more than the well being of all of society. I think this society would look much like a mob-run society - whomever has the money, TRULY rules the world for either bad or good (most likely bad). Child labor would be high, euthanasia and abortion rates would skyrocket… I cannot imagine anything other than a version or Fascism such as Nazi Germany, Moussalini’s (sp?) Italy, Taliban control, etc. If you have a different opinion, please enlighten me.”

I don’t really know how to respond at this point. It just seems to me as though the only two things that would be essential to a successful society would be free (unrestricted, unregulated) education and a realization of natural law. Sure, there are other essentials, but it seems as though they would follow after those two things. But, if the society doesn’t have those two things, it doesn’t matter what government type you have, the society is going to go down the tubes, whether it be quickly, or over a long period of time. So, the important thing, seems to me, is free education and a realization of natural law.. And when you have that, the correct government type, or correct lack thereof, should more-or-less follow.

I’d like to answer him directly, but I don’t know if there IS a short way to answer what he’s asking. I’d hate to just refer him to a book, because I doubt that he’d have enough desire to buy and read it. I have a couple of books that I just ordered from Mises, For a New Liberty, and Anarchy and the Law. I also have quite a collection of Richard Maybury’s books. Maybe I could loan him one of those? I just don’t know which one. Any help explaining would be appreciated.

2

the degree of corruption, of dishonesty, will depend on the incentives for honesty, and the disincentives for honesty. As ever, the consumer is the judge to whom entrepeneurs endeavour to appeal. If consumers dont care about business lying to them , then your friends analysis holds. There is good reason to think that that is nonsense.

If consumers care about businesses lying they will punish those that do and reward those that dont; they will factor reputations for honesty into their buying decisions. This is even aside from legal penalties which business that breach contract law would face when found out.

If a society requires its members to be able to receive ‘credibility/honesty rating’ services, would it be best to grant the ‘right’ to offer the service to a monopoly, or could a better product be delivered at lower cost under freedom of competition with no monopoly on provision?

it is precisely courts and criminal investigators etc etc, whose work is more closely allied to truth telling (as opposed to fashion consultancy, advertisers, bus drivers , bricklayers) that will have the greatest incentives to be honest and just. since if consumers of their products would rather pay for honesty and justice in the provision of these goods rather than not then to be anything else is to resign yourself to the scrapheap.

child labour will be high under any society with sufficently low productivity of labour and relatively high lack of parental concern over childs ‘welfare’.

it will be low under a society with high productivity and where parental concern for children is great.

which sounds more like a free society?

all his examples are of totalitarian regimes, their comon characteristics are a jealously guarded monopoly of law and force. This is exactly what is different in anarchy. There are checks and abalances to the use of force. defence is legitimate, and ones would be competitiors, if one started to coerce, have legitimacy to confront against the would be monopoly agressor.

‘Free education’ is not libertarian or anarchist. its socialist and statist

3

Actually, that would depend on what was meant by free, since it could simply mean no coercion by government in education.

4

i agree. but when talking to a non-anarchist and non-libertarian, it would be best to use less ambigious language. ‘private education’ ‘unregulated-unsubsidised-educatian’ etc etc.

5

By “free” education I meant education that is not controlled, regulated, or manipulated by a government. You’re right though, I should have been more clear.

Thanks for the extremely quick replies.

6

lol, no prob. i hope you like it because you recognise a positive quality to the arguments offered, and not just that they were offered quickly!

7

Roderick Long destroys the most common objections to anarchism here. Corruption under anarchism is less likely than under government. In government, I can lobby or bribe government officials to initiate a program that costs, say, $5 billion, though it only cost me $500,000 to do the lobbying. That is a huge gain for me. The reason government may do this is that it uses other peoples’ money, not its own. If I want something done in an anarchist society, I have to pay the full price and then some - in this case, I’d have to pay $5,000,500,000. On top of all of this, the arbitration or court service would most likely lose customers for going against their will.

In any case, just like any other business, private courts and protection agencies would have to serve the consumer or else lose customers to other services. If I, for example, get one court to back all of my violations of property rights via pollution, do you really think that anyone except for me would want to use that court?

As for the “too poor to go to court” argument, in ancient Iceland, people would sell legal claims, similar to tax liens today. For example, if you polluted my property, but I was too poor to sue you, I could sell my claim against you to a third party that would then sue you in an attempt to regain losses. A more modern form today is the way lawyers gain a certain share of the repatriation.

8

Tell me, where would corruption be more rampant?

a) a world where the people who make the decisions can make you give up half of your income against your will and give it to their friends,

OR

b) a world where the people who make the decisions have to solicit your contributions for everything they do?

a) a world where our phones, computers, and bank accounts are watched?

OR

b) a world with anonymous banking and no paper trail?

a) a world where the government tells you to go fight for them overseas

OR

b) a world where every individual is capable of defending themselves against aggression?

You get the point.

9

Your friend’s last objection, that any functioning society must have one set of laws and one final, ultimate authority to write, interpret, and enforce the laws, is a common one. I suppose it isn’t a bad one. Think about it a couple different ways, different from how we are accustomed to thinking in our Statist world, and anarchy makes more sense than Statism.

First, how many other things in life are better when there is only one option that is controlled and produced by a monopoly? What product or service do you want to be forced to accept as is, with very little chance of it changing or of finding an alternative and shopping around? Food? Education? Home security? Medicine? Automobiles? These are all vital things in life and yet the more the government is involved in them, the more it screws them up. This doesn’t mean law and order aren’t an exception to this rule, but it doesn’t help the Statist’s case.

Second, I know you don’t want to just throw a few books on political philosophy at him and say, “If you don’t agree with me after reading all these, you’re hopeless,” but Anthony de Jasay expertly addressed the dichotomy between dealing with multiple police/court/adjudication agencies in anarchy and dealing with the monopolistic government in Statism, in his magnum opus The State. In discussing the nature of arbitration between, say, two different companies or between an individual and a company in a free society, versus going to court against the State in our world, he notes that in a free society, no matter who you are in court (arbitration) with, there would always be some higher, or at least outside, authority to judge your case. Some agreed-upon arbitration judge or body. Under a State, however, not only do State courts become the primary place where you would settle a conflict of like with like (private individuals and companies), but the State is also the final authority on matters concerning itself, and that ought to be completely unacceptable to anyone. He wrote,

In conflict with his own kind, he would have the faculty of appeal, of recourse to a superior instance. Freedom from conflict of like with like, however, puts him in potential conflict with the higher instance. In opting for the latter, the possibility of recourse is given up. The state cannot be seriously expected to arbitrate conflicts to which it is an interested party, nor can we invoke its help in our quarrels with it. This is why accepting private interference, no matter how much it resembles “Darwinist sweepstakes,” is a risk of a different order from that of accepting state interference. The prudential argument against putting public in place of private constraints is not that one hurts more than the other. It is the somewhat indirect but no less powerful one that doing so makes the state unfit to perform the one service for civil society which no other body can render—that of being the instance of appeal.

In other words, the supposed virtue that the State has of being the one, ultimate authority in society makes it unfit to be the one, ultimate authority. It is not realistic for the State to be neutral or objective in those matters.

Your friend cited “checks and balances” as a virtue exhibited by the State and absent in a free society. This is one of a thousand examples of our screwed-up thinking that results from being conditioned and indoctrinated throughout our lives. (I know that sounds kind of conspiracy-theory nutty, but everyone is conditioned by the society they grow up in, free or Statist or whatever.) The State is supposed to check and balance ITSELF? That is ridiculous! Because it obviously doesn’t! Forget theory or hypothetical societies; read the news and watch TV! The three branches of the central government no longer check or balance themselves, and it wasn’t even 200 years before that had gone by the wayside! Profit, loss, competition, reputation, and the fickleness of customers provide more checks and balances on private companies than constitutions and elections do on governments and politicians. You might think the latter would work, but probably the one thing that makes this unfeasible is the monopoly power that government arrogates to itself and forces everyone to accept, upon penalty of death. In other words, the very thing your Statist friend extols as the one insurmountable virtue of the State above all anarchic law-enforcement systems is the exact thing that makes its “checks and balances” system fail.

10

After reading Murray Rothbard and especially Lysander Spooner I went from being a limited government libertarian to anarcho-capitalism. People will ask me how every possible need in society will be met if there is no government. I tell them that my beliefs do no stem from a utilitarian, but rather an ethical or moral basis. For me, my primary concern is not with the practicality of a policy, law, or political theory. I think first of my libertarian and Natural law ethics and see if the policy or act is in violation of these ethics.

In any society whether it be democracy, republic, libertarian, anarchist, there will always be needs in society that go unmet. It is not the question of HOW we should fill these needs but SHOULD we. The ends does not always justify the means. If the “means” violates a person’s liberty or property then it is not justified. Every government service that I’ve found requires funding from some form of taxation and taxation is theft by restricting an individuals ability to produce, consume, or trade their property.

11

Ethics is not everything. Wealth and good life matter too.

12

Well, your statement was very short and vague. What I will say is that I agree with you that wealth and a good life are important. However, If i steal from you or defraud you to gain my wealth to finance my good life then it would be criminal. While wealth and money are important there are certain things we cannot do to obtain these things. I don’t believe that Government can add any wealth to society they can merely redirect wealth to certain members or classes of society. A good essay that I liked was “What is seen and what is not seen” by Frederic Bastiat.

I have read Rothbards, Hoppe’s, theories on how the free market will provide for Police, National Defense, Roads, Laws, ETC. Their views are enlightening, but for me personally anarchism is not about how a free society will provide for everything that I need better than government can. It is about living in a society where no person or collective group of persons has the right or can pass a law to infringe on your life, liberty, and property.