Yes, people living in the past did not (for whatever reason) adopt norms of behavior that would have prevented the emergence of a state. Since we know that those norms of behavior exist (states currently use them to prevent superstates from forming), perhaps in the future people will be able to prevent the formation of states in an analogous way.
“Yes, people living in the past did not (for whatever reason) adopt norms of behavior that would have prevented the emergence of a state.”
Well maybe they did and failed. Some probably did not, and I think some tried (it is almost impossible to say that none of them tried, since trying to prove a negative is nearly impossible). Also your argument seems to be more based on theory i.e. the IH’s could prevent state formation, yet my argument is based on history since they have not successfully prevented state formation it seems very unlikely that they ever will. Either they never tried to utilize your principle because (1) they never thought of it or (2) they did try it and failed. I think (2) is more likely than (1).
Also in reply to my question in the first place Somalia is in a state of anarchy 1991 till the present has repelled, sort of, Ethiopian aggression. Yet given that Somalia has been in civil war for twenty years and Mogadishu is one the most dangerous cities in the world, the conclusions to be drawn are I think limited. Would you consider Somalia’s state of civil war a ‘anarchy’ in the orderly since of the word or in the use most people consider anarchy?
Your question was about aggression. State formation does not neccessarily imply aggression, so the fact that states exist almost everywhere does not show that anarchy always succumbs to aggressive statism (see Hoppe on natural elites).
If you were in the 18th century you could show that democracy always succumbed to aggressive oligarchies and civil war and thus could never exist for long. Arguing only from history is ridiculous.
“If you were in the 18th century you could show that democracy always succumbed to aggressive oligarchies and civil war and thus could never exist for long. Arguing only from history is ridiculous.”
You claim is ridiculous. If I cannot argue from history against anarchy than Austrian Economists cannot argue agaisnt Marxism becasue it alwasy fails in history, maybe the next time it will work. If your argument is correct than one of the most powerful arguments against Marxism is ruined. Your argument cuts off the branch you are sitting on. You also miss state my position. Even if I lived in the18th century I still would have ancient Athens as an example of a viable democracy, whereas the claim is that history has not shown any viable anarchies. Also the Marxist could say that your argument agaisnt marxism is absurd just because in the 20th centry marxism failed does not mean it will fail of necessity.
Since when did Austrians argue that Marxism is bad based on historical accounts?
It is not necessary to appeal to history to refute Marxism. See Socialism by Ludwig von Mises, or in fact anything by Ludwig von Mises. I have no idea how you can be on Mises.org forums and using only history as the basis of your argument.
Athens was a mere city-state and was defeated in war by Sparta and Macedon, despite its wealth and dependent cities. How could a large kingdom such as France ever be a democracy? We would be defeated by the English and Germans!
“Since when did Austrians argue that Marxism is bad based on historical accounts?”
Yuri Maltsev:
http://mises.org/journals/fm/fm890.pdf (on medical care)
Walter Block
http://mises.org/media/1568?silverlight=0
Andy Duncan
Antony Mueller
When every a Austrian claims mass murder is bad and then point to the Gulag, The Culteral Revolution, Pol Pots Killing Fields etc. Or whenever they claim, rightly, that communism produces shortages and point to history to show it. I could give more examples, but that would be redundant.
Maltsev article: looks at a specific issue, doesn’t do much more than outline statistics. Hardly uses history by itself to refute Marxism.
Block, Duncan works: Use a priori reasoning, not history…
Mueller: a specific issue, focuses on the person of Castro and US-Cuba relations, not using history to refute Marxism.
I repeat: Ludwig von Mises. Socialism. Theory and History. Human Action.
They did not derive any theory from the correlation. They understand the correlation by using theory. You don’t know AE well enough to speak accurately about this.
“Athens was a mere city-state and was defeated in war by Sparta and Macedon, despite its wealth and dependent cities. How could a large kingdom such as France ever be a democracy? We would be defeated by the English and Germans!”
You history is faulty Athen’s regained indepence from Spartan rule in about 1-2 years. After Alexander the great died Macedon lost controll of attica and the Pellopanese to the Achaian and Aetolian leagues, restoring Athenian independence. Athenian demoacy was only destroyed when Rome conquered the Aetolian and Achaen league around 197BC or 146BC. I never claimed that no state was never destoryed, but anarchy does not even have the run that Athens did. Further more a strickly anarcho-capitalist has never existed in the history of the world. Before the 19th century all anarchist candidates owned slaves and there weren’t even that many. From the 19th centry to the present modern anarchies have either been based on previous ones, syndicalists are kleptocracies (Somalia). Demcoracies did exist in history. If the Pivate defense for is so good why has not thrown out the states yet?
“How could a large kingdom such as France ever be a democracy? We would be defeated by the English and Germans!”
I do not know what this is supposed to prove?
The point is that you can attempt to use history to claim ridiculous things (as you are doing). A problem with the history of anarchist societies is that writing is an extremely rare and modern thing in human civilisation - let alone writing which has survived to the present day! Hence we have an extremely scant record of human societies before the 19th and 20th centuries. If you want to read about some anarchist tribes (using customary law) documented in modern times, see the articles by Bruce L. Benson in the Mises literature section.
Using history as your sole guide to human society is doomed to failure: it is unfalsifiable, its record is extremely small compared to the extent of human civilisation, and it has no reliance on logic. Have you actually read anything by Mises or Rothbard?
(As a side note, Macedon and other Hellenistic kingdoms controlled Athens for a lot longer than you are implying, and its democracy was never fully restored)
“Using history as your sole guide to human society is doomed to failure: it is unfalsifiable, its record is extremely small compared to the extent of human civilisation, and it has no reliance on logic. Have you actually read anything by Mises or Rothbard?”
Using pure theroy allows people to make ridiculous claims like you. Pure theory is unfalsifiable. Science weeds out incompetent theories by using them and find the ones that work best. Social science can never be 'disproven" since it cannot be falsified. Theorys are faslified by aplication. In Tolstoy’s War and Peace he mocks generals who claim they have a fail-proof battle plan theory to beat Napoleon, since they countroled all the variables. Yet Once they faught Napoleon their theory was shattered.
You could falsifly my claim about anarchism, if a Hoppean society won a war of liberation agasint a state and repelled state aggression for at least a couple of generations. I would then say it is a viable and possible alternative, but this has not happened yet.
Apart from the examples already given (Somalia, Ireland), how do you know that this has not happened? Even if you were to have encyclopedic knowledge of all recorded history, you would still have an extremely small knowledge of all societies that have existed and the conflicts between them. Your Tolstoy example is pointless, all it shows is that theories can be false, not that they necessarily are. Since some theories are contradictory with themselves and with other theories, this is obvious (since if they are contradictory at least one must be false).
Again, have you read anything by Mises or Rothbard? Have you read the Benson articles about customary law and anarchistic tribes?
My point about unfalsifiability was aimed at the way you keep changing your definitions to defend your argument - every time anyone has pointed out anarchistic societies you attempt to shift what you mean. Thus any attempt at falsifying your argument is met with sophistry.
There are certainly examples of much more radically decentralized cultures defending themselves against a more centralized foreign government.
And conquering them. Macedonians, Huns, Goths, Arabs, Turks, Khans, Cossacks; all using their relative flexibility and customary (though by no means perfect) social ties to sweep aside decadent empires.
After some time it has become clear that this is Rettoper all over again.
After some time it has become clear that this is Rettoper all over again.
What’s a Rettoper?
Unless you can provide any evidence that this happened (that they understood these norms and tried to practice them), I will assign a lower subjective probability to it than its negation. Afterall, I didn’t even know they could exist until about a year ago and only a very small subset of game theorists even understand the dynamics of conventions and how they emerge from strategic interaction and become Nash equilibria.
My argument is based on theory and history. Think of norms of behavior as a kind of technology. The technology currently works for some (like states), so I infer that it can work for others in the future (like individuals or households). Obviously, this is an inductive inference and so is not certain. Also, the fact that they didn’t have knowledge of these norms in the past (and 99.9% of current people do not understand these norms) isn’t as improbable as you make it sound. Most of the technology we currently use was never thought of by ancient peoples. That isn’t very good evidence that it wouldn’t have worked if they had thought of it.
A member that posted numerous threads that turned into exactly what this is turning into.
Some suggestions that may be of interest
for an interesting take on Athenian Democracy:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/long/long8.html
Also see Mises works: Theory and History and Socialism
Medieval Ireland was indeed stateless. The Tuatha weren’t states, all law was dealt with through surety contracts and dispute resolution by Brihons. Secondly, membership in Tuatha was, in theory, voluntary. So the fact that the members “paid taxes” to their religious leaders means nothing.