Regardless, Congress could submit legislation making newspapers illegal, the president could decide to not veto the legislation, and the supreme court could decide to uphold the law. The 50 state governments could decide to not challenge the act. All of this is extremely unlikely.
However, in an anarchist society, one section of society could decide to start a government, and could decide to use force to make everyone become a part of that government. So how does this make anarchy more stable than a society with a government?
They could do that of course. Humans have free will. There is nothing stopping them from doing anything. However, if they did do that, then they would face the consequences of their action, which would mean retaliation by those people who did not want to be subjected to their rule. And so the costs of doing this would greatly exceed the benefits of doing it. Assuming once again that humans are rational and self-interested, it would therefore be unprofitable to use force in order to establish a government.
My question is how do you ensure a society remains free of government? For example, I was watching an HBO special about an old western town, based on a true story. I cannot remember the name of it though. Anyways, the town started out without a government. Eventually, however, the town leaders decided to hold elections for a mayor, sheriff, and other government offices. The people in the town went ahead and voted.
I just do not think a world devoid of governments is possible. So if we have to have them, I think we should try to limit them as much as we can. I think the best way to do this is to define their actual purpose, so that lawmakers have an easy time understanding what laws should be enacted and what the purpose of the laws should be.
In the U.S., because the founding fathers never actually defined what the purpose of the government was, lawmakers have simply decided that laws should be for the purpose of controlling us, as reflected in regulations, traffic laws, etc.
Through the use of Private Defense Agencies, and unless you can theoretically explain to me otherwise, security is a service providable by the market. If you contend that the market can better provide every other good and service, then why not security? Indeed, a monopoly on security, such as that maintained by most governments, would be far more dangerous to minorities, than if minorities were well armed. To quote someone from somewhere: “A democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding on dinner. Anarchy is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.” I recommend you read some of Rothbard on this (something i’ve been meaning to do more of myself).
Right, and how exactly would someone force you to become part of their government in the presence of a free market for security, and a well armed populace? I don’t see that happening. I’ve even suggested having the free markets take care of security at home, and a national volunteer army of some sort taking care of threats from abroad. Even if the army were to be taken over by some sort of radical anti-rights fervor and decide to set up a totalitarian regime, they would still have to destroy every single PDA and somehow disarm all the populace.
Here’s how I usually phrase it: "IF government has any legitimate purpose, then that purpose is to protect individual rights" I say individual rights, not natural rights, but that is implied.
The problem with this idea, if anyone really wants to carry it further, is that I seriously doubt that’s why governments were historically created. Instead governments were originally created as a way of enhancing the power of some people over other people. I think over time, people decided that since this powerful organization already exists, it should do something more useful, like protect its citizens. And only in more recent human history has the idea of governments protecting rights come up and been stated explicitly.
The other problem with the idea of government depends upon how it is defined. If a government is an organization that has a monopoly on the use of force in a geographical area, then the idea of government is fundamentally flawed, because it initially exists by violating the rights of everyone in that area, even if it is only a limited, minarchist government that is actually trying to protect rights.
The answer, then, is either that government has no legitimate purposes, because it is a fundamentally illegitimate organization, or our concept of government must be redefined that allows the creation of a government that is legitimate.
As an anarchist, I lean towards the first answer, but if anyone wants to try to redefine ‘government’, I’m open to the idea. Maybe we CAN have our cake and eat it, too.
I think you err in two ways here. First of all, the only way anarchy could come about is through some sort of almost universal understanding of freedom and economics. Once/if this were achieved, and without this I do not see anarchy occuring, I do not see why this knowledge would not be passed on through generations. But yes I agree, the theory is very hard to implement, and for all practical reasons it seems to make sense to strive for minarchism, from where the jump to anarchy is far less.
Secondly, I think it is not mis-understanding, but the lobbying by special interest groups that has created most of the incentives for lawmakers to regulate the market, and this is something that I do not see as a curable problem of democratic government.
So where did the town leaders come from? Sounds like they decided to have a government, and used the old fake choice trick. Like when you ask the child if he wants to take a bath first, or brush his teeth first. “Ok, brats - you’re getting a Sheriff. Do you want tweedle-dee or tweedle-dum?”
How does this prove that not having governments is impossible?
This is why I think our efforts would better be focused on limiting government, since I do not see this ever happening (a universal understanding of freedom).
Redefining government, now that’s an interesting idea. If government’s only function were to protect individual’s natural rights, it might be feasible that it could live off donations, but then we still face the problem of wealthy individuals or corporations “donating” more than others, and perhaps gaining more “security” than others. In other words I still think corruption would be a problem, and in the absence of free market alternatives the problem wouldn’t fix itself…
I think if you word things like this, you’re likely to confuse yourself and others. Governments don’t exist for normative reasons any more than trees do. They weren’t put in place by (in)justice or abstract systems of ethics, they were put in place by tangible forces.
I think a better question to ask is: “If we create this ‘government’ in order to protect ‘natural rights’, will it have the effects we desire?”
Or in more neoclassical terms: “Is the institution of government incentive-compatible with the protection of natural rights?”
Hence why people want to be wealthy… You can’t call something corrupt simply because X pays more for getting more. It’s good to be rich, we all know that.
Let me re-phrase that. When I said some people getting more security, I was actually implying that they would be ensuring less security for others. In other words, I bribe you to look the other way while I do such and such, and since governments would have a monopoly on force, there is nobody else you could turn to.
What I should have asked, is how do we ensure society does not create a government? It may be possible that one day enough people will understand the importance of freedom to get rid of government. However, even if this were to happen, as time goes by, my guess is people would forget the importance of freedom, and revert back to a government.
You’re not being radical enough. If we redefine “government” as an organization that protects individual rights, then why would we need to hang on to the geographical monopoly idea? “governments” could be businesses, i.e. PDA’s, and then there could be ‘competing governments’, in spite of Rand’s ridicule of the idea.
Of course, such a redefinition IS pretty radical, and probably would take a long time to gain acceptance, if ever.
It would help to understand the answer to that problem when you realise that “society” never created governments, they were present ever since tribal leaders took command of primitive peoples. Governments were created by wealthy and powerful people, not society. Society only complied because it saw government as both inevitable and necessary. Show to society that the absense of government results in more freedom, higher standards of living, less wars, etc. and suddenly you have a lot of vested interest against the creation of government. It may be true that posterity would forget the benefits of freedom, but I doubt they would forget the very tangible benefits of higher living standards, which when historically compared to periods of statism should be much higher. Your question should be phrased more like “How do we ensure the leader of one PDA doesn’t decide to create his own government.” but then the explanation to that seems evident enough - competition with other PDAs.
At that point in time though, the government simply becomes a business like any other, unless we use the word “government” to differentiate between the service of security and all others. But then another word would probably work better, since government means literally to govern, but when it only provides security to protect natural rights, it wouldn’t be governing anyone anymore in the normal sense of the word. But then I suppose that it what redefining is about, lol.
Yes, I think we’d call that a security firm. It seems to me that what separates government from a security firm, besides being able to expand into any other field that it wishes, is the ability to literally set prices - i.e. to tax. Competing security firms can’t do this.