Before I get into the details of this post, let me point this out: the implication here is that the dozens of market anarchists on this site are too stupid or blindly dogmatic to have considered the objections herein, and yet have come to the conclusion that anarchy is the best way to organize a society. Even though these objections are so basic and obvious that it is impossible for us not to have encountered them, we are supposed to have been incompetent to address them, and so we are now being instructed by someone who is, by implication, far more capable an intellecutal than we.
I think that is one of the inherit problems of anarchy. In theory it is great but the realities of it are more than challenging. Will Rogers compared communism to prohibition. “ It’s a good idea it just don’t work” and I think the same comparison applies to anarchy as well.
First, an idea that doesn't work is not a good idea. Communism and prohibition didn't work because they are contrary to human nature. They are both expressions of the same fallacious idea: that people are too stupid and wicked to control their own lives, so some other people, who are necessarily also stupid and wicked, must be empowered to rule over them. It is extremely relevant to note that this is the very premise on which all justifications for the state are based.
Anarchy is always one argument away from things turning into ochlarchy.
Unfounded assertion. Please explain your reasoning.
The Free Danes in medieval England was about as close to an anarchist system as has been tried.
Actually, the Icelandic goðorð system, the Irish túatha under the Brehon laws, the Pennsylvanian Quakers, and the American frontier were far more anarchic, as they had no monopoly state to organize them. The Free Danes did, even though it was limited in scope and power.
If such a system would work in our style of democracy is more than questionable. I say probably not.
And you'd be right. Democracy is entirely unsuitable to the protection of individual rights, as it is not based on any particular moral principles. In fact, it is exclusive to any moral principles whatsoever except for "might makes right". Or inversely, if a government were to be founded upon any moral principle (which by definition would attempt to describe an "ought" applicable to all persons at all times in any situation), any democratic power would inevitably lead to actions by the government which would contradict it, rendering such government illegitimate. Furthermore, if a people were capable of discovering moral principles in the first place, then they would need no organization of government to do so. In either case, democracy is incapable of rendering justice or protecting liberty, which are the only stated purposes of government in the first place.
I don’t think the majority of people would accept it particularly in an electoral democracy. I personally don’t favor electoral governments. I think sortitional methods are much more representative of the people.
That doesn't make sortition a just or moral means of governance. All governments, representative or otherwise, are founded on the assumption that the very people who are incapable of ruling themselves must be empowered to rule others. This is a blatant contradiction, which is to say, objectively wrong. Which leaves the state-defender to categorize people into seperate classes of: the political order, who are assumed to be intellectually and morally qualified to control a monopoly on legalized violence; and everyone else, who are assumed to be too stupid and wicked to hold the same power.
This is also a blatant contradiction, as human morality is universal to all persons, making such categorization absurd. But even if it were possible to make such distinctions, the state-defender must empower the enlightened, morally superior class to
choose themselves, as the intellectually and morally bankrupt masses are, by nature, incapable of choosing them. And here we run into further contradictions. All human experience has shown that leaders, either self-appointed or elected, disagree with one another. This means that only
some of those capable to rule are, in fact, capable to rule. Which means that there must be a further distinction within the political order. Perhaps a hierarchy of good-ness and intelligence, which renders some more worthy of rulership than others. But since we, the wicked, dumb masses are incapable of determining their worthiness (because if we were not so incapable we would have no need of their rule), we must leave the better rulers to determine their own worthiness within their own class, and exclude others from the power which they must possess. Because since they alone are smart enough, good enough, and
right enough to rule, they must have the exclusive power to do so.
So all arguments for government are, in fact, arguments for unilateral despotism. Of course, people know instinctively that this is falsehood. Yet they are not willing to face the opposite conclusion: that people are intellectually and morally capable of governing themselves, and of dealing fairly and effectively with the few who attempt to dominate others. Such a condition would be anarchy, after all - and the state-defender begins his argument from the
assumption that anarchy is a bad thing.
So since the logical conclusion of liberty is rejected without examination, and since the logical conclusion of absolute tyranny is intolerable to the human mind and spirit, we instead live in a world of total moral contradiction. We have a little bit of democracy, a little bit of autocracy, and a nod and a wink to rights and justice. But in the end it leads to the same place that all moral inconsistency leads: a condition of "might makes right", which in practice is nothing more than slavery.
The Free Talk Live BBS
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Topic: How do you enforce Anarchy? (Read 10711 times)