Stop it with the Somalia stuff. And China and the US are the most powerful nations because they are economically developed. The states can take their cut off the top and have the ideological support to go with it. States are maintained mostly by ideology; the only real “aggression” that they partake in is on the margins (against the resistors). If they can jail enough dissenters, the rest will fall in line. The difference between a State and some sociopath shouting orders in the street is that one has a population resigned to its inevitability and (in most cases) legitimacy.
So says the neocon troll. I’m just calling you out on your BS. If you’re too scared to defend yourself, that’s your problem, not mine.
You and I both know that I wasn’t directly quoting you. But aggression being a good idea all the time is what I’ve gathered from your posts in this thread, and elsewhere. I invite you to try to convince me otherwise.
Thanks for proving my point. “Coercion” and “aggression” aren’t the same thing to anarcho-capitalists, and certainly not to me. Once again, you should know this by now, which is why I think you’re being intellectually dishonest (i.e. you’re trolling).
We don’t think in terms of “strong” and “weak” like you apparently do. No amount of essentially calling us “weak” is going to change our beliefs or shut us up. Do you get it yet? Probably not. After all, you’re a troll, aren’t you?
But if you’d like to play intellectual honesty for a bit, then tell me - under exactly which circumstances do you consider aggression to be justified?
I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. It isn’t about power with us. It’s about freedom.
I’m not sure what you mean by this question, “dude”.
Apparently that to you means any time it’s employed defensively. Which is why I consider you to advocate aggression all the time.
Where did I use Somalia as any lynchpin argument? Or are you yet again thinking in collectivist terms?
I fail to see how this is even valid mockery. Furthermore, I have no idea what argument you’re referring to.
The question seems to answer itself. Let me remind you that anarcho-capitalists aren’t about power. We’re about freedom. But again, I submit that you’re well aware of this and are just trying to see if you can trip us up - i.e., you’re trolling.
No one is arguing that power is not effective. It is. But simply because there is coercion it doesn’t mean that we must accept it and go one killing each other.
Again, not all coercion is created equal (at least as far as I define the term). There’s aggressive coercion and defensive coercion. It’s aggressive coercion that libertarians are morally/ethically opposed to.
That’s what I meant 
Ah okay. Well I think it’s good to be precise with your terms - otherwise, you’ll have people claiming things like you oppose all violence per se.
I’m not judging the moral implications of your non-violent belief system.
My point is that it is ineffective at gaining and securing power against statists who routinely use coercion to gain and hold power.
And if ‘anarcho-capitalists aren’t about power’ instead being interested in freedom that is fine, but your not going to gain freedom or private property protections from statists or any other ideological persuasion without power.
Seriously, do you think that the statist is going to hand power over to you because it is morally correct ?
I don’t know how much simpler I can explain the real world to you.
No one is arguing that power is not effective. It is. But simply because there is coercion it doesn’t mean that we must accept it and go one killing each other. – Wheylous
You accept that power is effective and at the same time you do not accept that a self-interested actor should use it.
‘Yeah aggression works, but don’t use it cuz it ain’t nice.’
I don’t see how that is a logical foundation to base anarcho-capitalism.
It really is not about private property, you are arguing for non-violence since your stance of rejecting a legitimate means to defend private property endangers your freedom and ability to hold said property.
You should call yourself anarcho-pacifists first and foremost.
You seem to be conflating Hoppe’s realist opposition to Hobbes with Utopian idealism… “Let’s all agree not to take each other’s stuff, OK?” is not the same as “What is mine is mine and I will hire security guards to make sure it stays mine, even if an organization that claims magical legitimacy - such as a church or government - thinks that some of what is mine is actually theirs.” In other words, Hoppe is not espousing pacifism but, rather, self-defense from predation by both private actors and the State.
Actually, I think that many Misesean ideas would be well-received by the protestors if certain touch-point phrases and issues are avoided during initial discussion.
True - this is why tyranny and statism are not mere perversions foisted upon the masses by a wobbly balance of power held by a tiny elite - they are illnesses of society of which the State and its predation are mere symptoms. That a society suffering from moral illness will be ruled by a tyrant - it’s just a question of who gets to be tyrant - doesn’t meant the society isn’t ill and it doesn’t prove that any society must be ill. American society is ill and it needs to recover from its illness. We probably won’t begin to recover from the infection until we break the fever which is going to be painful. We have to collide with the reailty that you can’t print money and wage war all over the world and be rich and have high employment and peaceful, liberal society at the same time. The source of the disease - the welfare state, the military-industrial complex and its enablers in the Fed and Wall Street - will not come under attack by public opinion until after Americans begin to suffer, really suffer. Only then will people begin to ask where we took a wrong turn and how we ended up in this mess.
Please cite the specific sentence where Hoppe engages in wishful thinking about society. Hoppe is laser-precise in his word choice so you’re making a pretty tall claim here.
You conflate power with the visible public apparatus of power (government). All power is private. While the political means is one method of gaining power, it is far from the only method. Those who eschew the political means may have simply chosen to attain power through more wholesome and reliable means.
Clayton -
The crux of your entire attempt at a counter-argument is your continual and (as far as I can tell) deliberate conflation between “non-aggression” and “non-violence”. Let me you know when you decide to be intellectually honest. In the meantime, you’re not fooling anyone - certainly not me.
@ Clayton and Autolykos
I’m not conflating anything. You both have misunderstood and misrepresented my argument.
Aggression has been an effective means to gain power otherwise statist wouldn’t have so much power.
Do you both understand this point?
Do you challenge it ?
Lets reach agreement on this one simple point before moving forward.
Try not to make anything more of it than the simple assertion that statist have effectively used coercion, aggression, violence, whatever you want to call it to gain and hold power.
I’m not making any moral judgments, lets stick to a scientific analysis of coercion and its effectiveness to gain and hold power then we can move on if we reach an understanding on this simple point.
I’ve already stated that the political means is one means to attaining wealth and power.
Clayton -
I’ve already stated that the political means is one means to attaining wealth and power.
Clayton -
Okay, but you still haven’t answered my question of whether you think coercion is an effective method to gain and hold power?
Presumably, you consider politics as coercive. That is fine. If it is, do you consider its use an effective means to gain and hold power?
If we are viewing the problem as statists, for hypothetical sakes, I would argue that physical coercion has it’s uses to quelm the slaves. However the much more efficient means of ensuring continued rule over them would be through education; remove from their minds the very idea that they can ever be free and, if you can, make it so they think they’d be worse off if they weren’t slaves.
What is the relevance of this question though? Libertarians don’t wish to enslave others. I have no doubt that most of us could become petty warlords with our intellect if that is your point. We might even be better off as such individually, but we have rejected such things. Liberty is a beautiful ideal, and I for one would sooner die in its service than as a dime-a-dozen dictator.
How has your non-aggression thing been working dude ? Fool hardy that anarchists will only resort to violence when it is too late to be of consequence.
Last I checked it’s worked out better than expected. At least I’m quite sure the love of trade is strong enough in society that I can go to my local grocery market and get food for the week without resorting to violence. I apologize if I speak from ignorance and you have to use aggression against your local butcher to get chicken for your lunch or engage in a sword duel with the gas attendant to fill up your automobile.
@Centinel: Again, you confuse private power (the ability to achieve one’s own ends) with power over people, that is, what we call “governance.” Governance is a means to achieving real power (the ability to achieve one’s own ends) but it is far from the only means. Your identification of private power with governance is fallacious.
To your question, “[is] coercion … an effective method to gain and hold power [over people]”, the answer is that it is the only way to gain and hold power over people … by definition, obtaining and maintaining power over people is aggression and requires the use of coercion.
So, yes, bachelors are unmarried men.
Clayton -
@ Michelanglo
I have no doubt that most of us could become petty warlords with our intellect if that is your point. We might even be better off as such individually, but we have rejected such things. – Michelanglo
Precisely my point. However, I am not impressed by the intellect of a failed morality-based faith that rejects a legitimate and effective means to gain and maintain private property and liberty .
Many anarchists on this site subordinate the ends of liberty and prosperity to the means of peaceful and voluntary change because you consider utilizing coercive means to attain these ends as repulsive. .
My point has always been that many anarchists on this site place subjective moral considerations ahead of prosperity, private property and liberty.
However, as your friendly neighborhood neocon, I assert that coercion in the defense of liberty, private property and prosperity is justified, particularly when it is exercised against statists.
And no, because I sanction the use of coercion to gain and defend private property and liberty does not imply that I am a statist. I am simply benefitting from the same means that statists have used against freedom loving folk throughout history to promote self-serving destructive societal ends.
Last I checked it’s worked out better than expected. At least I’m quite sure the love of trade is strong enough in society that I can go to my local grocery market and get food for the week without resorting to violence. I apologize if I speak from ignorance and you have to use aggression against your local butcher to get chicken for your lunch or engage in a sword duel with the gas attendant to fill up your automobile. – Michelangelo
You might want to retract this statement since it implies that the present statist system is peaceful, prosperous and improving societal living standards. I beg to differ.
Last time I checked, your visit to the local grocery market requires you to pay exorbidant taxes, rents, royalities, and fees that fund wasteful and corrupt politically connected interests. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are a slave to statist overlords in Washington and elsewhere.
They just allow a small measure of capitalism to keep you pacified and to guarantee some societal growth and prosperity.
We need change. We need private property protections. We need an economic bill of rights. And we need to consider the same means used by statists to force beneficial societal change.
Now before labeling me a statist consider that I advocate private property protections. Where we differ is the most effective means and system to best guarantee private property and liberty.
Do you believe that statists (the United States government) currently deprive you of private property rights and liberty ?
And if so, what are you going to do about it besides posting on anarchist forums ?
What is your preferred means to counter these abuses if your not morally permitted to use coercion ?
@Centinel: Originary secession.
This is why I stated I had no doubt we could become petite statists if we wish; which is what we could become if we used aggression to meet our ends. You are confusing the goal of libertarianism I believe. It is not to create a state where we can do whatever we wish to do. Kings and presidents have this ability already. The goal of libertarianism is to extend this to as large a group as possible. In your proposal only a few of us would be free, and the rest must be inherently enslaved under our aggression or the threat of it. That is hardly the largest possible group of free men.
As for my statement on the supermarket and butcher; yes we currently exist alongside a state apparatus. This does not however mean that anarchistic institutions do not also exist. In so far as we act in concert with others voluntarily we act within an anarchistic apparatus. The grocery man was not told to bring my favorite brand of cereal to the market under the threat of aggression. I was not forced by anyone to patron his shop and exchange my money for said cereal. We both acted voluntarily. It serves not to validate that the present existence of the state, but if anything it is proof that men can cooperate without the use of aggression.
You may call yourself a non-statist, but if you preach the use of violence you are little different than a Dalek to me.
I had no doubt we could become petite statists if we wish; which is what we could become if we used aggression to meet our ends. -Michelangelo
it is a failed system that claims to have the means to gain self-determination but rejects it because the adherents to this system don’t trust themselves with the power required to gain self-determination. Rather they prefer to surrender that power to statists who enslave them.
yes we currently exist alongside a state apparatus. This does not however mean that anarchistic institutions do not also exist. In so far as we act in concert with others voluntarily we act within an anarchistic apparatus.- Michelangelo
Your ditty begs the following questions:
If you ‘exist alongside a state apparatus’ is this voluntary or coercive ?
And if it is coercive, how do you rationalize labeling it as ‘alongside’ as opposed to within ?
And if it is coercive, isn’t it self-defense to use coercion to free yourself from it ?
And if you still reject coercive means to gain self-determination from the current coercive statist system (or any other), aren’t you a pacifist (or a slave or a coward) rather than a capitalist ?