If anarchy were to arise in the United States, would it have to be due to:
A violent revolution whereas ‘regular people’ (for lack of better words) fight against the government.
A non-violent revolution whereas a democratically-elected politician formally dismantles the government through legal means.
Everyone simply deciding that they don’t need the government anymore, thereby distancing themselves even if it’s through illegal means such as not paying taxes and adhering to certain laws (minimum wage, etc.).
Here are a few problems that I thought about for each of these things. Hopefully it can lead to a good discussion.
A violent revolution might portray anarchy in a negative light considering people (possibly including some innocents accidentally) will get hurt.
I personally find this the best choice, but it might make people think they need a politician in order to be free when it’s the opposite of the truth.
The problem here is with national security. Pretend we put up unbearable sanctions against Iran. They take it as an act of war (which I’m assuming most of you on here will agree with). Now we’ll pretend 60% of the people in the United States have distanced themselves from the government, yet the government tells Iran that they still represent the 60%'s opinion. How would we possibly let Iran know that the majority of people are against the sanctions/war when it will most likely try to fight against the United States as a country and not against the individual politicians/etc. making decisions? I guess this has more to do with personal security, but national security could tie into it too.
There’s that, and also the fact that said politician would have to use government power to defend against political opposition (which I’d say has a very likely chance of existing). In the case of said politician being the U.S. President, he’d be impeachable by Congress should he decide not to provide any money to any of the executive departments. For this strategy to work, the vast majority of voters would have to be libertarian already – if so, why bother using politics?
I’d imagine that if 60% of Americans distanced themselves from the government, the government would be forced to dramatically roll back its operations, if only through sheer lack of tax revenue. Also, those 60% would presumably still trade with Iranians, so the Iranians would have some understanding that what the U.S. government says is not backed up by a majority of “its people”.
I think the most viable route would be to create a “symbolic democracy” where you have a “President”, “Parliament” and so on but with zero actual authority. This is analogous to how several European monarchies (England, Denmark, Norway, etc.) have managed to remain in existence (unlike the French who got beheaded) while gracefully ceding power to the representative governments that their subject populaces demanded on pain of revolution.
Let’s say Hoppe’s idea of a San Francisco secession came into being… all the talking heads would characterize a Hoppean natural order as feudalism or oligarchic capitalist dictatorship, etc. unless the seceding territory had in place something that looked like what people generally accept as a “legitimate” government. So, the best way to do that, IMO, would be to create a “Constitution” complete with elected officials who serve in unpaid, purely ceremonial positions (business leaders or other civic persons could occupy these positions). The law would remain natural order law so that even the President could not order even a homeless man to do anything with his person or property which he does not wish to do and is not obligated to do under a natural order legal system since the “President” is nothing more than just another guy with a lapel pin that says “President” on it.
Governments being outcompeted by domestic and/or foreign private sectors
Imagine that just offshore the USA, there are thousands of floating platforms called “seasteads”. These are private, tax free businesses. They do things much more cheaply and efficiently than onshore because they have no tax or regulatory burden. Everyone onshore goes to the platforms for medical services, banking, drugs, clothes etc. The seasteads don’t accept paper money, they only accept gold.
State currency becomes worthless. The state has no more taxes because everyone chooses to work on seasteads for higher wages.
5 . Tax evasion
People would be willing to pay up to their taxable income to avoid taxes. So if someone can come up with a method of tax evasion that costs $10,000, the majority of people will use it and stop paying taxes. Think about secession, or indentity scramblers, or mini-nukes I can keep in my closet…
Sieben, I think that your fifth option is similar to the original third. Citizens would distance themselves via “Counter-Economics,” if I remember the definition correctly. Whether through tax evasion, or under-the-table business operation, the government would lose revenue, increase taxes to fill the gap, lose further support, and collapse from the next gentle breeze.
The seasteads sound like a solid idea, but do we have the technology? I suppose that if the revolution is in the future, I can accept the technology being futuristic as well, but I hope to see freedom from coercion in my lifetime.
My money is on Sieben’s options. Specifically 4, because each of these seasteads is incredibly mobile. Imagine one nation tries to take over the seasteads, and then everybody just moves their seastead into some other country’s sea space. Now the original country no longer has any of the benefits of the seasteads business, and they didn’t get to take over. This constant threat of secession will make each country more amicable to the seasteads.
It creates a more fluid (heh) market place in the industry of government.
I don’t see anarchy coming in one fell swoop nor do I see there ever being an “intellectual revolution”. I can only imagine it coming gradually with minarchy being it’s predecessor. Many nations are privatizing public industries to the private sector to cut costsso we’ll probably go through a period of a privatizing which could help lead to it by shrinking government expendientures. A tax revolt and cheating would probably not be ideal as it would probably result from increased taxation(50%+) and people just wouldn’t want to pay that much, not because they want to stick it to government. A collaspe and/or bankruptcy from that would probably lead to panic.
According to the The Seasteading Institute, the technology seems to be there, but research still needs done, and the funding question is unanswered.
These seem like they could very well be the answer to our problems. If we could all buy/form a seastead, and offer a pro-business environment, we could grow, form more, and collapse existing land states. In theory, of course.
Realistically I don’t ever see seastedding taking off. Looking at the website they seem to be having trouble making a quarter of a million dollars. Decentralizing and peaceful secession are far more likely.
So the technology is there but no funding. Are there any ideas for businesses that could operate on sea, something that would be much more profitable there? That could be the breakpoint, similar to hopes of commerzialisation of space flight. By the way, are there any oil platforms outside of state territory that could be bought?
My fifth point is kind of similar to the OP’s, but the OP thinks people might just lose faith in the state. I’m claiming that doesn’t even need to happen, because even people who believe in states will try to free ride off its benefits if they have the option. Its just a question of how expensive it is to free ride
Seasteading is probably 20 years away. I don’t think the actual seasteading institute is going to make the big push. Some private corporation is going to become interested, and then get the SSI to be their consultants since they’ve been researching it for decades. They’re a think tank.
Sieben, can you back your claim that seastading is 20 years away? Apart from houseboats are there any trends to this direction or other think tanks or resources than the SSI?
My problem with seasteading is that there is absolutely nothing stopping a government from intervening. Especially since there is something called “international law”. Better to try than not though. The same situation might arise as in the US civil war, where foreign countries did not interviene partially because it was unethical.
The ease of movement from jurisdiction to jurisdiction is what creates the anarchy. So even if somebody decides to take over a certain section of the sea, they will still be able to move to another jurisdiction at an incredibly low cost.
With that in mind, falling costs of transportation further the cause of anarchy. The cheaper it gets to leave a certain territory, the more attractive it has to be to stay. Hence the idea that after France declares war, in a world without costs of moving, it would be inhabited only by the french president, two generals and a few reporters.
I don’t have anything to substantiate my claim that seasteading is 20 years away. I actually think 20 years is optimistic… but the sooner the better.
As far as governments appropriating or attacking seasteads, its possible but might not happen for the same reason that governments dont attack places like morocco or luxembourg. It would simply be seen as an act of aggression. And the fact that seasteads aren’t a country makes it difficult to propagandize against them as a group. Propoganda would be even harder since Americans would be buying from and working on seasteads, as opposed to just some far off non-white country no one’s ever heard of.
Well, yea someone can conquer a section of the sea, but what about the platform itself? It can’t outrun an army. I am sure the army will have no problems either siezing the property or ‘disabling’ it.
I don’t mean to be negative, just pointing out a potential issue.
This is true, and may even happen to a few of them, but the information speed way has made this an incredibly costly thing to do in the geopolitical world.
Attacking an innocent and non-aggressive seastead doesn’t exactly make you a favored country among other countries and their constituents.
