So, in a society completely without government, what stops warlords?

[BobRobertson]

Governments have put me against the wall a bunch of times so far so I'll take my chances.

"For any given society, the imposition of a coercive state only makes things worse."

I'm with you completely on this one, Alaric. It could not possibly be _worse_.

[TimeLady Victorious]

But, but, but, we have a system!

Yesterday a settlement ended Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, a Supreme Court case that raised the question of when prosecutors can be held personally liable for misconduct they commit while accumulating evidence against a defendant. Terry Harrington and Curtis W. McGhee, who served 25 years for the 1978 murder of a retired police officer before being released, sued Dave Richter and Joseph Hrvol, the Pottawattamie County, Iowa, prosecutors who sent them to prison, accusing them of fabricating evidence, coercing witnesses, and hiding exculpatory evidence. The issue before the Court, which heard the case in November, was whether Richter and Hrvol committed these abuses in their roles as prosecutors, in which case longstanding precedent would make them immune from lawsuits, or in their roles as investigators, in which case they could be held personally liable. The $12 million settlement by the prosecutors and the county suggests they feared the Court would reach the latter conclusion.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/05/12-million-prevents-a-supreme

Warlords, dude.

Oh good.

Were these people's heads stuck on pikes? Were their wives and children raped in front of them?

This isn't it. If you honestly don't think we live in a free nation, move to Somalia. That's all I can tell ya.

[cavalier973]

I used to think that anarcho-capitalism was an unrealizable ideal, too.  That is, until I found out that Americans can pull it off:

http://jim.com/wild_west.htm

The key is Schelling Points

[TimeLady Victorious]

There is one vast error in this entire thread.

A government is not a State.

Would you mind pointing out the difference?

I don't mean that in a snarky way, I agree with you on this point, I just can't find the words for it.

[BobRobertson]

Governance is a (somewhat archaic) method of organisation.

No, governance is merely that something is controlled. Like a governor on an engine being a mechanism for limiting its speed.

Government is the institution with the monopoly on "legitimate" coercion.

I've heard people say that the "state" and "government" are separate, but that is only true in situations such as England or Japan where there is a "head of state", the Queen, the Emperor, etc, as opposed to their prime minister who is "head of government".

Personally, I think it's an esoteric separation. The State claims all power, the "government" then holds the monopoly on coercion. Sure. Divine right and all that.

Bureaucracy has broken down a lot in our personal and economic lives, the State is the only existing functionality of governance on a large scale these days.

Huh? Bureaucratic management is alive and well, it's just not as efficient as entrepreneurial management. The reason you can see a difference is because we HAVE large-scale entrepreneurial management to compare to, such as FedEx and UPS compared to the USPS.

However it is still possible to govern an area without resorting to the use of a state. This is referred to as Panarchy, and is actually what many anarchists want, not the dissolution of society as many people seem to believe.

Just repeal the monopoly on coercion. That's all "anarchists" are calling for. The rules of society remain, because "we" have come up with those rules independent of any government". Governance has very little to do with government, people generally govern themselves (or not).

"A government is just people, most, notably, ungoverned."

[BobRobertson]

Nothing you have said is in disagreement with what I have said.

You said, paraphrased, "Governance is an esoteric form of organization."

That is completely incorrect. Governance is merely the word for control. I am under governance because I govern myself.

Government is neither dependent upon nor a prerequisite to governance, as it obvious by the agents of government who act entirely without governance and then are immune from the results of their actions by falling back upon the limited liability enherent in being an agent of the institutional monopoly on force.

[BobRobertson]

And control is a means of organizing things.

That is a non-sequiter.

Organizing means to bring under control, not the other way around.

Something can be controlled, yet completely unorganized with anything else.

Government is a means of organizing. Not governance.

[digitalfour]

This is a stupid argument.

[Riddler]

This is a stupid argument.

amen, jesus christ....
i'm ready to take the tailpipe over this blather

[BobRobertson]

Yet government (which we agree is a from of both organization and control) uses governance to achieve it's ends.

So does a weaver-bird. So what?